Yeshua cumple con las Fiestas de Primavera

SATISFIED

Five Studies in Spiritual Values

by

Charles H. Welch

Author of

Dispensational Truth

The Apostle of the Reconciliation

The Testimony of the Lord's Prisoner

Parable, Miracle and Sign

Just and the Justifier

THE BEREAN PUBLISHING TRUST

52A Wilson Street, LONDON EC2A 2ER

ENGLAND

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PREFACE

‘All Scripture is given by inspiration of God (theopneustos-God breathed), and is profitable for doctrine, for

reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness: that the man of God may be perfect, throughly furnished

unto all good works’ (2 Tim. 3:16,17).

Most of us have heard of the legend of King Solomon’s Mines but there is a Mine that is not connected with

legends, to which we have free access, namely, the Word of God. This is His truth given to us, in which we can

keep digging, and unearth by the Spirit of God, gems that in splendour outshine all the glory of Solomon; that reveal

to us the One Who was, is, and always will be greater than Solomon, Christ Himself, the One Who for a time, for us,

gave up that glory and all it signified, so that we might be manifested with Him in glory, redeemed by His precious

blood.

With the persistence and energy of the miner in mind we think of Charles Welch and his labour and zeal over the

many years, unearthing Truths in the Word of God. In these days of apostasy, apathy and opposition to God and His

wonderful Salvation in Christ, I, and to be pertinent, all believers who desire to go on to perfection (the end or goal)

need so much the truths of his labours to build us up in our most holy faith and that as set out in 1 Peter 3:15 we may

sanctify the Lord God in our hearts: and be ready always to give an answer to every man that asks us a reason for the

hope that is in us, with meekness and fear.

Not only does the author ‘dig’ with all his energy, but, like the lapidary, he polishes and makes these gems of

Truth scintillate with a foretaste of the glory that is to be ours in due time.

In this book he has ranged through the Scriptures dealing with such subjects as ‘Satisfaction’, ‘Immortality’,

‘Oneness’, ‘Forgiveness’, ‘Bread of Life’, ‘Redemption’, ‘Deity of Christ’ etc.

His aim and object, as it has been throughout his life, is to glorify God and His Son our Lord Jesus Christ in all

the Scriptures; to be an earthen vessel, always in his writings and expositions, exalting Christ. Here is an exposition

of Dispensational, Doctrinal and Practical truth not to be ignored by those who love the Lord Jesus Christ, a book

not to be hastily read, and placed in the library, but to be perused and studied with the Scriptures beside one, for the

author’s aim and object is to lead us to be ‘Throughly Furnished’. This can only be accomplished by recourse to the

Scriptures themselves, but we also should praise God and thank Him for men such as Mr.Welch, who have given us

the aids to understanding the Word of God.

With grateful thanks which I am sure will be echoed by all who study this book, I pray for the author and all

associated with him in this publication.

W. H. H. 9th Sept. 1962.

RAGS OR ROBES 3

CONTENTS

Page

ALL SPIRITUAL BLESSINGS

or Crumbs from Israel’s Table 4

RAGS OR ROBES

a sequel to the above study 11

The righteousness of God apart from the law 13

ALL OF ONE (Hebrews 2:11) 16

Romans eight 17

The image of the heavenly 17

The Kinsman-Redeemer 19

Immanuel, God with us 20

The nearest of kin who failed 21

Resurrection life 22

Redemption and its implications 23

THE LORD’S ANOINTED 24

SATISFIED

‘I shall be satisfied’ (Psa. 17:15) 34

Positive resurrection hope 37

Death likened to sleep

Resurrection likened to awakening 38

The Lamb of God (Isa. 52:13 to 56:8)

The structure of Isaiah 52:13 to 53:12 discovered 39

‘Wherefore God hath highly exalted Him’ 41

The astonishment and blindness of Israel 43

‘Who hath believed our report?’ 45

‘Christ ... suffered ... the just for the unjust’ 48

A twofold Meeting Place 49

‘The pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His Hand’ 50

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All Spiritual Blessings

OR

CRUMBS From Israel’s Table.

Which?

An appeal and a challenge.

Some of us stay at the Cross,

Some of us wait at the Tomb,

Quickened, raised, seated together with Christ,

Yet living still in gloom.

Some of us bide at the Passover Feast

With Ascension all unknown -

The triumphs of grace in the heavenly place

That our Lord has made our own.

If the Christ Who died had stopped at the Cross

His work had been incomplete;

If the Christ Who was buried had stayed in the Tomb

He had only known defeat.

But the way of the Cross never stops at the Cross,

And the way of the Tomb leads on

To victorious grace in the heavenly place

Where the risen Lord has gone.

(Adapted from C.S.S.M. magazine of April 1933 by A. H. M. and printed in The Berean Expositor Vol. 23, page

160).

Some believers, alas, do not even ‘stay at the Cross’, for much of their reading and private devotion is based

upon the Gospels, and the only one of the four that definitely announces eternal life as a gift of God upon believing

is John. Luke’s Gospel, written by one who so faithfully served with the apostle Paul, has a Gentile aspect, but the

actual Cross, Death, Burial, Resurrection and Ascension of Christ, do not appear until the closing chapter is reached.

Even after the Resurrection the attitude of the apostles and most of the followers is expressed in the fatalistic

announcement of Peter ‘I go fishing’, or merited the rebuke administered by the risen Christ to the two on the road

to Emmaus, ‘Fools and slow of heart to believe’. Peter, whose attitude in Matthew 16:21-23 makes it clear that he

had no idea that Christ would suffer, nevertheless preached the gospel of the Kingdom, and did so acceptably for it

was confirmed by ‘signs following’ which included even the raising of the dead (Matt. 10:7,8). Is THAT GOSPEL the

good news for today? We are sure that those to whom we write these lines, would not tolerate a gospel where ‘Jesus

Christ and Him Crucified’ was unknown, yet without, apparently, any conception of how inconsistent they are, some

take to themselves the Sermon on the Mount, the Parables of the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven, the Prophecy

of the Second Coming in Matthew 24, together with moral and doctrinal passages ALL OF WHICH was truth for those

who neither knew nor believed the Cross or the Resurrection!

Perhaps the earliest and the sweetest result of believing the Gospel of Christ, is to learn of the forgiveness of

sins, and we can well imagine those who have been in the habit of reciting the Lord’s Prayer will feel that they have

here evidence from Scripture that our estimate of the early chapters of Matthew is wrong and dangerous. This

prayer is given in the Sermon on the Mount, where there is not one reference to faith, redemption, justification or

atonement, in spite of the categorical statements of Scripture that ‘Without shedding of blood is no remission

(forgiveness)’ (Heb. 9:22), or as announced by the apostle concerning Christ:

‘In Whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins’ (Eph. 1:7).

According to the revelation of truth found in the epistles, forgiveness is IRREVERSIBLE, being based upon redemption

and justification, and issues in ‘No condemnation’ and ‘No separation’ (Rom. 8:1, 31-39). Even an unsaved man,

RAGS OR ROBES 5

who was possessed of nothing more than a natural ability to read English, whether it be in the Bible or any printed

page, if given Romans 8:1, 31-39 to read and was asked ‘Can THAT position ever be forfeited?’ would be obliged

to admit that forfeiture in such a context was impossible.

WHERE THEN IS THE SANCTIFIED LOGIC OF THE REGENERATE READER OF MATTHEW 6:12-

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How can he place himself in BOTH Matthew 6 and Romans 8? The prayer which our Lord taught His disciples

contains a number of clauses, but only one is lifted out for fuller expansion and explanation, that is the clause

dealing with forgiveness. How many who pray:

‘And forgive us our debts, as we forgive our debtors’,

really pause to consider what they ask or go on to ponder the Lord’s own interpretation of these portentious words?

‘For if ye forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you: BUT IF ye forgive NOT men

their trespasses, NEITHER will your Father forgive your trespasses’.

Such conditions are foreign to the testimony of the epistles. THERE the position is: ‘You are freely forgiven, won’t

you forgive others?’

‘Be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, EVEN AS God for Christ’s sake HATH forgiven

you’ (Eph. 4:32).

The matter was evidently so vital, and so likely to be misunderstood, that later in the same Gospel the Saviour gives

the parable of the unforgiving servant, making explicit what is implied in Matthew 5:24-26, where not being

reconciled to one’s brother, makes one liable to imprisonment,

‘Verily I say unto thee, Thou shalt by no means come out thence, till thou hast paid the UTTERMOST FARTHING’

(Matt. 5:26).

We have heard some extravagant claims and statements about the Sermon on the Mount, but the ‘danger of hell

fire’ and ‘the uttermost farthing’ seems to be passed over without comment.

THE PARABLE OF THE UNFORGIVING SERVANT

‘Therefore is the kingdom of heaven likened unto a certain king...’ (Matt. 18:23).

The unforgiving servant finds himself in the exact position that the Lord’s prayer envisages:

‘His lord was wroth, and delivered him to the tormentors, till he should pay all that was due unto him. SO

LIKEWISE (and do not shirk the issue) shall My heavenly Father do also unto you, (you believers, not the

ungodly), if ye from your hearts forgive not every one ... their trespasses’ (Matt. 18:34,35).

There is a vital and fundamental difference, between the pardon of a king as seen in the Gospels, and the

justification of a sinner as seen in the epistles. The pardon of a king can be withdrawn, the forgiveness that is

founded on redemption, atonement, justification, imputation, acceptance and access, can never be rescinded. The

forgiveness of the Lord’s prayer is related to the kingdom to be set up on earth, is an echo of the cancellation of

debts at the recurring day of Jubilee, and has no possible issue in ‘No condemnation’ as the parable of Matthew 18

most clearly reveals. Why, O why do earnest believers pray again and again in terms that are completely

antagonistic to all that has been revealed since Jesus Christ died because of sins and rose again because of our

justification? Thank God no believer today will ever be put back into prison and kept there until he has paid the

uttermost farthing, and those who use the Lord’s prayer know that in their hearts.

Many years ago we heard Archibald Brown preach on the unforgiving servant at Spurgeon’s Tabernacle, but

blessed be God, although he ANNOUNCED his text from Matthew 18, he knew the grace of God too well to preach

from it, but to our delight broke all rules of homiletics, and ranged through Romans, Galatians, Ephesians and

Colossians and preached forgiveness of sins based upon the precious blood of Christ, in spite of his adoption of

Matthew 18 as his text.

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‘CRUMBS FROM THE MASTER’S TABLE’

Sometime ago we spent a period with a group of lovely Christian folk who gathered each evening for a reading

of the Word. The Gospel of Mark was the book chosen, and night after night we followed the earthly ministry of the

Son of God, and read about demon possession, healing of diseases, parables of the mysteries of the kingdom of

heaven, feeding thousands in a desert, and the calming of a tempest, but never of redeeming grace. It so happened

that when our reading reached Mark 7, the present writer was asked to take verses 24-37, in which we read of

‘crumbs’ that fell from Israel’s table. I asked them, and I ask you who read these lines, ‘Are you living on

"CRUMBS", while the unsearchable riches of Christ await your acceptance, but remain to all intents a closed book?’

Crumbs from the Master’s table, the title of this chapter, was suggested by the record of Matthew 15 and that of

Mark 7.

THE PLACE The coasts of Tyre and Sidon.

THE RACE A woman of Canaan, A Greek,

A Syrophenician, in other words a Gentile.

To this woman’s pleading, the Saviour gives the following reply:

‘l am NOT SENT but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel’ (Matt. 15:24).

We are here on the same dispensational ground as in Matthew 10, when the Lord said:

‘GO NOT into the way of the Gentiles’ (Matt. 10:5).

Is it not amazing, that godly believers can read these two statements and still go on as though no such prohibition

had been made, and that all that is written in these chapters belongs to, and is applicable to, the Church. While our

Saviour walked the earth, the hour had not yet come when He could be proclaimed as the Saviour of the world. The

Lord honoured that principle of interpretation, so vilified by many, namely ‘Right Division’ not only in Matthew 10

and 15, but in the treatment of Isaiah 61:1,2 as can be seen in Luke 4:16-21.

The Gospel according to Matthew falls into two parts, both marked by a note of time. ‘From that time’.

‘From that time Jesus BEGAN to preach, and to say, Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand’ (Matt. 4:17).

‘From that time forth BEGAN Jesus to shew unto His disciples, how that He must go unto Jerusalem, and suffer

many things of the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised again the third day’ (Matt.

16:21).

If we believe the Word of God we shall have to admit that all teaching that precedes Matthew 16:21 had no

references to Jesus Christ and Him crucified, dead, buried and risen, but are we willing to take this to its logical

conclusion? This woman of Canaan was descended, as far as we can tell, from the Canaanites of Zidon which Asher

failed to drive out as recorded in Judges 1:31. Those of us who see our calling clearly, in Ephesians 1:3-14, see also

in Ephesians 2:12 that we were ‘outsiders’ too.

‘That at that time ye were WITHOUT CHRIST, being ALIENS from the commonwealth of Israel, and STRANGERS

from the covenants of promise, having NO HOPE, and without God in the world’ (Eph. 2:12).

But here the similarity ends. Do WE beg CRUMBS that fall from ISRAEL’S table? Read the charter of this church

(Eph. 1:3-14) again and answer ‘yes’ if you dare.

This woman of Canaan cried to the Lord:

‘Have mercy on me, O Lord, Thou Son of David’ (Matt. 15:22).

and even though she sought help for her daughter and not for herself ‘He answered her NOT A WORD’! Yet, in the

same chapter, He called to His disciples and said ‘I have compassion on the multitude’ (Matt. 15:32), but here He

was back in Galilee, and no longer dealing with a ‘Greek’. It will be noticed that this poor woman echoed the title

that she heard others use and addressed Him as ‘Thou Son of David’. Later in Romans 1:1-4, Christ as ‘the seed of

David’ was declared to be the Son of God with power, in the gospel preached to ‘all nations’ (Rom. 1:5), and the

hope of the church AT THAT TIME was:

RAGS OR ROBES 7

‘There shall be a root of Jesse, and He that shall rise to reign over the Gentiles; in Him shall the Gentiles trust (or

"hope")’ (Rom. 15:12).

By this time the Gentile believer was likened to a wild olive grafted contrary to nature into the Olive tree of

Israel (Rom. 11:23-25), which is a stage higher than the place that the Syrophenician could hope for during the

earthly ministry of the Son of God.

At Pentecost, and after, the title ‘Son of David’ was linked with David’s throne by Peter:

‘Therefore being a prophet, and knowing that God had sworn with an oath to him, that of the fruit of his loins,

according to the flesh, He would raise up Christ TO SIT ON HIS THRONE’ (Acts 2:30).

What has the Church to do with David’s throne? Later, Paul speaks of Christ as the seed of David in Romans 1:3,

not with reference to David’s throne, but with the Gospel that had been entrusted to him, and in 2 Timothy 2:8 says:

‘Remember that Jesus Christ of the seed of David was raised from the dead according to my gospel’.

suggesting that while the Person remained the same, many associations that were related to David’s Son according

to Peter’s particular Gospel would have to be readjusted. Later on, when the time came for Peter to write his epistles

he turns attention away from David’s throne and says of Christ:

‘Who is gone into heaven, and is on the right hand of God; angels and authorities and powers being made subject

unto Him’ (1 Pet. 3:22).

It may have been that the Saviour’s purpose in not answering this woman’s request immediately, was to

emphasize the distinction that then obtained between the Jew and the Gentile. She, as a Canaanite woman, had no

claim on Him as ‘The Son of David’. This is implied in His next statement:

‘I am not sent but unto the lost sheep of the house of Israel’ (Matt. 15:24).

The limitation of Matthew 10 still held good. The woman however did not withdraw at this rebuff; she

apparently learned the intended lesson, for she dropped the title ‘Son of David’ and came and worshipped Him

saying, ‘Lord, help me’, using the universal title of ‘Lord’ instead of the more restricted title of ‘Son of David’. To

this second appeal a further obstacle was raised:

‘It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs’ (Matt. 15:26).

In Mark’s record this is preceded by the words:

‘Let the children first be filled’ (Mark. 7:27).

‘First’ does not exclude entirely, but recognizes precedence and order. This is still in evidence in Romans 1, where

the Gospel is:

‘To the Jew first, and also to the Greek’ (Rom. 1:16).

While from the point of view of sin and salvation, the apostle could write ‘there is no difference’, the Jew was still

first, and always would be while in covenant relationship with God until set aside temporarily as they were at Acts

28. The Jew is not ‘first’ today. As we have seen, the same epistle that lays the foundation of justification by faith

without works for all men whether Jew or Gentile, emphasizes that from the DISPENSATIONAL point of view, the Jew

was still first, and uses the illustration of the olive tree in Romans 11 to teach this: Gentile believers were ‘graft

contrary to nature’ into the Olive tree, a union vastly inferior to that which was subsequently to be revealed in

Ephesians 3:6 after Israel had gone into their present state of blindness and the olive tree cut to the roots. Until the

last chapter of the Acts, and influencing the epistles written by Paul during the Acts, namely Galatians, Romans,

1 and 2 Corinthians, 1 and 2 Thessalonians and Hebrews, the hope of Israel was the hope of the Church. This we

have already gathered from Romans 15:12,13 and this is implied by the introduction of the Archangel in

1 Thessalonians 4, for the Archangel is Michael (Jude 9) and Michael stands for the people of Israel, and when he

stands up there is a resurrection (Dan. 12:1). The concentration of the Lord on the people of Israel at His first

advent, did NOT mean that God had no concern for the lost world outside, but rather the reverse. According to the

covenant with Abraham, Israel were to be the channel of blessing through which ‘all families of the earth’ should be

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blessed. Israel were destined to become a ‘Royal priesthood and an holy nation’ and so the Saviour first of all ‘came

to His own’.

‘The children must FIRST be fed’.

Something of this can be seen in the Acts of the Apostles where the occurrences of the word ‘sent’ keep pace

with outworking of the dispensational movements outlined in the Acts. They can be seen by the following analysis:

JERUSALEM

Jews

only

‘Jews out of every nation under heaven’

‘Ye men of Israel’ (Acts 2:5,22).

‘Unto you FIRST God, having raised up His Son

Jesus, SENT Him to bless you, in turning away

every one of you from his iniquities’ (Acts 3:26).

ANTIOCH

Jew

and

Gentile

‘Men and brethren, children of the stock of

Abraham, and whosoever among you feareth

God, TO YOU is the word of this salvation SENT’

(Acts 13:26)

‘It was necessary that the word of God should

FIRST have been spoken to you: but seeing ye put

it from you, and judge yourselves unworthy of

everlasting life, lo, we turn to the Gentiles’ (Acts

13:46).

ROME

Gentile

only

‘Lest ... should be converted, and I should heal

them. Be it known therefore unto you, that the

salvation of God is SENT unto the Gentiles, and

that they will hear it’ (Acts 28:27,28).

This final ministry of the apostle Paul is made known in Acts 26:17.

‘Delivering thee from the people, and from the Gentiles, UNTO WHOM NOW I SEND THEE’.

In Matthews’s account (see also that of Mark 7:27) the Lord said to the woman:

‘It is not meet to take the children’s bread, and to cast it to dogs’ (Matt. 15:26).

The expression ‘cast it to dogs’ would be well known by the Jews as it was a clause in their law, that because

they as a people were ‘holy’, they were forbidden to eat the flesh of any beast that had been torn, but, said the law,

‘Ye shall cast it to the dogs’ (Exod. 22:31). This would have shut the door completely against this Greek, this

woman of Canaan. But here the compassion of the Saviour becomes evident. He could not, and would not, take

back His words that He was not ‘sent’ but to the lost sheep of the house of Israel, and had He used the word kuon

‘dog’ or ‘hound’ this poor woman would have been left without hope. What He did say was kunarion ‘little

puppies’. While, in the East, dogs were scavengers, and their place was ‘without’, yet, according to the testimony of

Rev. James Neil, the little puppies were allowed in the house for a few brief weeks of their lives, and this woman’s

faith seizes on this fact, saying:

‘Truth, Lord: yet the little puppies eat of the crumbs which fall from their masters’ table’.

The word ‘master’ translates seven Greek words in the New Testament despotes, didaskalos, epistates, kathegetes,

kubernetes, rabbi, kurios.

The word used in Matthew 15:27 is kurios, which is translated ‘lord’ 56 times and ‘Lord’ 663 times.

‘Truth, LORD (kurios): yet the dogs eat of the crumbs which fall from their lords’ (kurios) table’.

Here, the pre-eminence of the Jew, as set forth in such passages as Isaiah 49:22,23 and 60:10-12 is recognized, a

position that is right and proper in connection with the earthly kingdom yet to be established, but entirely out of

RAGS OR ROBES 9

place in the dispensation of the Mystery where ‘the middle wall of partition’ has been broken down, and the ‘both’

reconciled in ‘one body’; where the ‘both’ have ‘access by one spirit unto the Father’, where they are ‘no more

strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and of the household of God’, where:

‘The Gentiles should be fellowheirs, and of the same body, and partakers of His promise in Christ by the gospel

(not now "the gospel of the kingdom") but the gospel: whereof I (Paul) was made a minister ... that I should

preach among the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ; and to make all men see what is the dispensation

(Revised Version) of the mystery, which from the beginning of the world hath been hid in God’ (Eph. 3:6-9).

Here are no ‘crumbs’, and these riches were never found on Israel’s table. No promise to Abraham goes higher

than ‘the city which hath foundations’, the heavenly Jerusalem, but these blessings revealed through Paul as the

Prisoner of Jesus Christ for us Gentiles, are associated with Christ Who is seated ‘Far above all heavens’ and this

church is called ‘The fulness of Him that filleth all in all’ (Eph. 1:21-23).

Beloved reader, how can you rest content with crumbs that fall from Israel’s table, be likened to little dogs, and

think of Israel as your ‘lord’ when the high calling of God in Christ Jesus is open to you during this parenthesis in

the purpose of the ages, brought about by Israel’s rejection at Acts 28? As soon as this Greek woman acknowledged

the superior place occupied by Israel, she received the answer to her prayer. In all true humility we too might say:

‘I am not worthy of the least of all the mercies, and of all the truth, which Thou hast shewed unto Thy servant’

(Gen. 32:10);

but it is a false humility that turns its back on the unspeakable blessings that God holds out to the Gentile believer

today. We are no more worthy of the ‘least’ than we are of the ‘most’.

Since Israel have passed into their present condition of blindness, foretold and foreshadowed under the name

lo-ammi ‘Not My people’ (Hos. 1:9) a completely new order of things has been introduced by the revelation of ‘The

mystery’, a secret section of the purpose of the ages, which had been ‘hid in God’, and ‘hid away from the ages and

generations’, but now revealed to and through Paul, the Prisoner of Jesus Christ for us Gentiles (Acts 28:28; Eph.

3:1-9; Col. 1:24-27). The crumbs that fell from Israel’s table cannot be compared with:

‘All spiritual blessings in heavenly places in Christ’ (Eph. 1:3).

An election made ‘before’ the foundation of the world (Eph. 1:4).

The predestinated ‘adoption’ or firstborn position (Eph. 1:5).

A glorious ‘acceptance in the Beloved, and an assured "access" by one Spirit unto the Father’ (Eph. 1:6; 2:18).

The church which is ‘The Body’ is actually given the title:

‘The fulness of Him that filleth all in all’ (Eph. 1:23).

The unity this formed is unique:

‘The Gentiles ... joint-heirs, a joint-body, and joint-partakers of His promise in Christ by the gospel whereof Paul

was made a minister’ (Eph. 3:6,7 Author’s translation).

The woman of Canaan took the place of the dogs, and would never dream of being ‘seated together’ with the

‘children’ (Israel) at their table, whereas we, who were:

‘Aliens from the commonwealth of Israel, and strangers from the covenants of promise’ (Eph. 2:12),

being much further off from grace than even this poor Syrophenician woman was, have been ‘made nigh by the

blood of Christ’, and are potentially, even now, reckoned to be, ‘Seated together with Christ’ (Eph. 2:6) where He

now sits at the right hand of God, ‘Far above all principality, and power’ (Eph. 1:21). The reader will have noticed

that we have confined ourselves to quoting from one epistle to emphasize the riches of grace and glory that the

present interval of Israel’s blindness makes possible.

This epistle alas, is almost unknown territory to many who really love the Lord. Where hundreds could quote

the Lord’s Prayer of Matthew 6, very few could quote the prayer given for our guidance in Ephesians 1:15-23.

Where hundreds could quote the Sermon on the Mount in which ‘the meek’ shall inherit ‘the EARTH’, few could

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quote from memory the references to the super-HEAVENLY inheritance laid up for these truly ‘meek’ of Ephesians

4:2. The half-hearted obedience to the kind of walk inculcated by the Sermon on the Mount, is no substitute for that

‘walk’ which is ‘worthy of’, or in correspondence with, the high calling of God as revealed in the epistle to the

Ephesians (Eph. 4:1-16). These blessings of grace and glory beyond our dreams, are ours through the precious

blood of Christ. The walk and the blessings of the Sermon on the Mount were spoken of, and to, those who had no

knowledge or faith in that Sacrifice of love. However, to go further would necessitate an exposition of the four

Prison Epistles, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians and 2 Timothy, together with that of the Acts of the Apostles,

and the dominant place of Israel up to the end of the Acts, and a true assessment of the place intended by Pentecost.

As all these subjects have been given an exposition, and the volumes are still available and indicated in our list of

publications, we bring this brief attempt to draw attention to the essential differences that exist between the

‘crumbs’, with which so many seem content, and the supernal glories that are held out in this day of grace to all who

will but put out the hand of faith, that they may be ‘filled with all the fulness of God’ (Eph. 3:19). We have tried to

draw attention to what the Scriptures actually teach and say. We have called this study:

‘An appeal and a challenge’.

We seek not yours, but you. We cannot but be sad to sit in the company of evident godly Christians, who are so

taken up with the earthly ministry of Christ, where nothing but ‘crumbs’ that fall from Israel’s table can be theirs,

while blessings that never were on Israel’s table, and never could be called crumbs, are either unknown, neglected or

muddled with the earthly ministry of Christ, and who have apparently never read the apostle’s own testimony:

‘Wherefore we henceforth know no man after the flesh: even though we have known Christ after the flesh, yet

now we know HIM SO no more. Wherefore if any man is in Christ, HE IS a new creature (creation): the old things

are passed away; behold, they are become new’ (2 Cor. 5:16,17 Revised Version).

These ‘old things’ go together with Christ ‘after the flesh’.

To the members of the One Body and partakers in the high calling of the present dispensation of the Mystery

revealed, consequent upon Israel’s blindness, comes the exhortation of the apostle:

‘If ye then be risen with Christ, seek those things which are above, where Christ sitteth on the right hand of God.

Set your affection (mind) on things above, not on things on the earth. For ye are dead (died), and your life is hid

with Christ in God. When Christ, Who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory’

(Col. 3:1-4).

A greater than Joshua calls to us all:

‘Choose you this day’ (Josh. 24:15).

Which shall it be? ‘Crumbs’ that fall from Israel’s table or ‘the unsearchable riches of Christ’ which Paul, as the

‘prisoner of Jesus Christ’ was commissioned to preach ‘unto the Gentiles’? (Eph. 3:1-9).

We trust we shall not be considered unscriptural if we have caught something of the earnestness of this apostle

whose ambition was:

‘To make all men see what is the fellowship (dispensation R.V.) of the mystery, which from the beginning of the

world hath been hid in God’ (Eph. 3:9).

RAGS OR ROBES 11

RAGS OR ROBES

A sequel to

ALL SPIRITUAL BLESSINGS

or

Crumbs from Israel’s Table

Clothing in Scripture is often used as a symbol, and even in the things of everyday life, clothing often represents

something more than a mere covering of the body. Priests were clothed, not only with the distinctive clothing

prescribed by law, but with righteousness and with salvation. Others could be clothed with shame, with humility,

with cursing, and the Lord Himself be clothed with strength, with majesty, with honour, with garments of vengeance

and with zeal as a cloak, and few of us there are who have not read with gratitude and pleasure the words of Isaiah

61:10.

While all our teaching is based squarely upon the Word of God, it will not hurt us to remember that, the ‘Sage of

Chelsea’, for example, wrote a whole philosophy of clothes under the title Sartor Resartus, where he says:

‘You see two individuals, one dressed in fine Red, the other in coarse Blue: Red says to Blue "Be hanged and

anatomised"; Blue hears with a shudder, and (O wonder of wonders) marches sorrowfully to the gallows ... Your

Red hanging individual has a horse hair wig, with squirrel skins, and a plush gown; whereby all mortals know

that he is a JUDGE - Society ... is founded upon cloth’.

We remember ‘Jarge, a farm labourer who joined the police, exulting in the thought that when he was in uniform

he held up the Squire and his car, in the High Street’! And yet one more secular reference:

‘The apparel oft proclaims the man’ (Shakespeare).

Clothing is also called a ‘habit’, and we remember a teacher once writing the word HABIT on the board, and

trying to get rid of it letter by letter, A BIT, BIT, IT, until only the T was left, the symbol of the cross. One has only to

read through such a book as the Revelation to note the continued use of clothing as a symbol. The opening

description of the Saviour’s presence, Revelation 1:13-18 speaks not only of His head, His hair and His feet, but of

His garment and His girdle. Over and over again we read of white raiment, and white robes, and fine linen, of

defiled garments, of robes washed, of an angel clothed with a cloud, of witnesses clothed in sack cloth; of a woman

clothed with the sun, and a vesture dipped in blood. The earliest reference to clothing in the Scriptures is associated

with a sense of guilt and shame and the attempt, however frail and futile, to provide some sort of covering. Of both

Adam and Eve it is written:

‘And the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves

together, and made themselves aprons’ (Gen. 3:7).

Over against this we read:

‘Unto Adam also and to his wife did the LORD God make coats of skins, and clothed them’ (Gen. 3:21).

The Hebrew word asah occurs fifteen times in Genesis 1 to 3, but in the form known to grammarians as kal it

occurs seven times:

‘And God made the firmament ... two great lights ... beast ... man ... an help meet’. Adam and Eve ‘made ...

aprons ... God made coats of skins’ (Gen. 1:7,16,25,26; 2:18; 3:7,21).

God finished His work of creation and rested, but, sin entering into the world, His first act was to provide a

covering for sin by sacrifice, and so from Genesis 3 a new work begins which was not finished until the death of the

cross (John 4:34; 5:36; 17:4; 19:30). The seventh reference to anything that God made started the great unfolding

by type and shadow of redeeming love. The oldest comment on Genesis 3:7 is found in the book of Job:

RAGS OR ROBES 12

‘If I covered (kasah) my transgressions as Adam, by hiding mine iniquity in my bosom ... (then) let thistles grow

instead of wheat, and cockle instead of barley’ (Job 31:33,40).

In contrast with Adam, the Psalmist says after a period of silence:

‘I acknowledged my sin unto Thee, and mine iniquity have I not hid (kasah). I said, I will confess my

transgressions unto the LORD; and Thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin’ (Psa. 32:5).

Here, ‘hiding’ or ‘covering’ sin, is placed over against acknowledgment and confession, resulting in forgiveness.

On the other hand we read:

‘Thou hast forgiven the iniquity of Thy people, Thou hast covered (kasah) all their sin’ (Psa. 85:2).

This twofold aspect of the idea of covering sin, can be further set forth by two or three passages in Proverbs.

‘Hatred stirreth up strifes: but love covereth all sins’ (Prov. 10:12) .

‘He that covereth a transgression seeketh love; but he that repeateth a matter separateth friends’ (Prov. 17:9).

How true and how sad! Yet in the same book of Proverbs we read:

‘He that covereth his sins shall not prosper’ (Prov. 28:13).

It is one thing for sin to be righteously covered; it is another for sin to be ‘covered up’. The feeling that

prompted Adam and Eve to make a covering was right; the wrong was the kind of covering they provided. Without

shedding of blood is no remission, and this truth was again re-enacted in Genesis 4, where the two offerings, the one

by Cain and the other by Abel, repeat the lesson of the girdle of fig-leaves as over against the coats of skins, so

tragically. Girdles or aprons simply covered nakedness, and are connected with the loins (Ezek. 23:15). The coats

were a covering, not for nakedness, but for sin, and were full length, large enough for a man to use as a bed cover

(Exod. 22:27). Both coat and girdle or apron form a part of the symbolic garments of the High Priest (Exod. 28:4).

Here the shame of guilt and the wages of sin are both represented. Skins dyed red were a part of the covering of the

Tabernacle (Exod. 25:5). The skin of the sacrificial bull was included in the sin offering (Lev. 4:11). While there is

no etymological connexion between the words ‘hide’ the verb, and ‘hide’ meaning the skin of an animal, it is

suggestive that they are interchangeable in English (Lev 8:17). Let it be noticed too that before the coats were put

upon Adam and Eve, the fig-leaf girdles were taken away. There can be no confusing of the two. This is clearly set

forth in Zechariah 3:3,4:

‘Now Joshua was clothed with filthy garments, and stood before the angel. And he answered and spake unto

those that stood before him, saying, TAKE AWAY the filthy garments from him. And unto him he said, Behold, I

have caused thine iniquity to pass from thee, and I will CLOTHE thee with change of raiment’.

There can be no ‘covering up’, the covering is of another character which we must consider presently. Let us

consider what that tested Patriarch Job said concerning Adam’s attempt to cover up his sin.

‘If I covered my transgressions as Adam, by hiding mine iniquity in my bosom’ (Job 31:33).

The whole of this chapter is taken up by Job’s indignant repudiation of the conclusion reached by his baffled friends

that somehow he must prove to be a secret sinner, to have suffered as he had done at the hands of the Almighty.

Sixteen times, at least, he says ‘If I have’, with the conclusion at last ‘then’

‘Let thistles grow instead of wheat’ (Job 31:40).

We now turn away from the futile attempt of man to cover his sin, to the provision made by God, exemplified for

the first time by the provision of the coats of skins, set forth in a long line of typical sacrifices, and at length fully

accomplished by the Son of God whose sacrificial death is set forth as a propitiation, with the twofold object that (1)

God might be just, (2) and the Justifier of the believer. We must consider why the A.V. reads ‘atonement’ in

Romans 5:11. We must give heed to the meaning and usage of the Hebrew word kaphar. We must seek the

Scriptural intention in the references to cover sin by sacrifice. We must consider the bearing of type, figure, shadow

and pattern.

13

THE WORD ‘ATONEMENT’ IN ROMANS 5:11

‘By Whom we have now received the atonement’

If this word refers to the sacrificial Offering of Christ, we know that WE do not receive that, but receive its

blessed consequences. The Atoning Sacrifice was offered to God. We note that the margin reads as an alternative

‘reconciliation’ with a reference back to verse 10. It is evident therefore that the translators of the Authorized

Version were perfectly familiar with ‘reconciliation’, and yet deliberately used the word ‘atonement’ instead. The

simple fact is that the word ‘atonement’ was in common use three hundred years ago as an equivalent to

reconciliation, and was selected with deliberate intent to show the reader that gospel Reconciliation and atoning

Sacrifice are linked together. Perhaps all readers are not acquainted with Elizabethan literature, but most if not all

have access to Shakespeare. Here are a few examples of the obsolete verb ‘to at-one’:

‘He desires to make atonement between the Duke of Gloster and your brothers’ (Richard III act 1. scene 3).

‘Since we cannot atone you, we shall see Justice design the victor’s chivalry’ (Richard II act 1. scene 1).

‘I was glad I did atone my countryman and you’ (Cymbeline act 1. scene 4).

‘What atonement is there between light and darkness’ (Philpot).

In the estimate of God sin is only righteously covered when an atonement has been offered and accepted. The

justification of the believing sinner is emptied of all meaning, if by so doing God’s holiness and righteousness be

compromised. The focus of this most important truth is at Romans 3:25,26 :

‘Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS ... that

HE might be JUST, and the JUSTIFIER of him which believeth in Jesus’.

THE RIGHTEOUSNESS OF GOD APART FROM LAW

Romans 3 and 4 discusses this, and also the passage from Psalm 32 which speaks of the blessedness of the man

whose sin is covered. Under the law of conscience and the evidence of creation, the Gentile has been found

inexcusable (Rom. 1:20), but not only so, chapter 2 shows that the Jew too, with all the advantage of the written law,

is likewise inexcusable (Rom. 2:1). Neither the Jew nor the Gentile was found righteous, and the whole world

brought in guilty before God.

BUT NOW

At Romans 3:21 we step out of the sphere of condemnation, into one of acceptance, out of the bondage of law to

the freedom of the gospel, and ‘But now’ marks that mighty change. The section of Romans which opens at chapter

3 verse 21, closes on the same note in verses 27, 28:

Romans 3:21-28.

A 21 Choris Apart from law ... manifested

B 21,22 a Righteousness of God ... manifested

b Faith

C 22-25 a Gratuitous justification

b Faith

B 25,26 a Righteousness of God ... declared

b Faith

A 27,28 Choris Apart from works of law ... justified

We leave this structural outline to speak for itself*

* This and other passages in Romans touched upon here, are given a fairly comprehensive examination in the book

Just and the Justifier.

RAGS OR ROBES 14

In Romans 4, the apostle cites Psalm 32, and to this passage we now turn our attention. David’s testimony is

particularly useful because of the precision of his language. He describes the blessedness of the man unto whom

God imputeth righteousness without works, by saying:

‘Blessed is the man to whom the Lord will not impute sin’ (Rom. 4:8).

Here we have balancing terms. To impute sin is to lay sin to the charge of any one, and to treat him as a sinner.

To impute righteousness must in the same way set righteousness to one’s account, and treat one as being righteous.

David does not use the same terms as does Paul, but the apostle sees in the words ‘iniquities forgiven’ and ‘sins

covered’ and the non-imputation of sin, Old Testament equivalents.

RAGS OR ROBES

We return to the title adopted for this chapter Rags or Robes and find them both in the prophecy of Isaiah:

‘We are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf’ (Isa.

64:6).

The use of the plural ‘righteousnesses’ sounds a trifle strange to English speaking people, but the figure known

as the Plural of Majesty, that accepts the Editorial ‘we’, is very common in the Hebrew of the Old Testament.

‘Bloods’ in Genesis 4:10 indicates ‘life’s blood’,

‘Blindnesses’ in Genesis 19:11 Great blindness.

It is correct to read ‘The sacrifices of God IS’ (Psa. 51:17) for the plural is not intended - the phrase means ‘The

supreme sacrifice’. So in Hebrews 9:23 ‘Better sacrifices’ means ‘The one infinitely better Sacrifice’.

So the prophet says ‘All our most righteous deeds’ are as filthy rags, not merely our evident sins. The proximity

of rags and fading leaves turns our thoughts back to Genesis 3. The ‘robe’ as opposed to the ‘rags’ is found in Isaiah

61:10 :

‘He hath clothed me with the garments of salvation,

He hath covered me with the robe of righteousness’.

We come back therefore to our opening pages, and rejoice that, while we must never ‘cover up’ sin, God does

blessedly ‘cover’ it by reason of the satisfaction made by the Offering of His beloved Son on our account.

Let us take another look at Romans 3:25,26 which reads:

‘Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in His blood, to declare His righteousness ... that He

might be just, and the Justifier of him which believeth in Jesus’ (Rom. 3:25,26).

The word translated ‘propitiation’ here, is ‘the mercy seat’ in Hebrews 9:5. This propitiation has been ‘set

forth’. Protithemi ‘set forth’ is found elsewhere only in Romans 1:13 and Ephesians 1:9, where it is translated

‘purposed’. God ‘purposed’ or ‘set before Himself’ in His great redemptive plan, the propitiation. He set it forth in

the typical mercy seat, and it was before Him when He passed over the sins of men before Christ actually came to

the earth. It is possible that the words ‘through faith in His blood’ should be treated as an adverbial clause added to

the propitiatory. ‘Through faith’ is the means of subjective appropriation of the Atonement; ‘in His blood’ is the

objective medium of its exhibition. Thus:

THE PROPITIATION Received through faith - Subjective

Exhibited by the shed blood - Objective

We may therefore set out in tabular form this wondrous truth in Romans 3 thus:

The Initial cause Unmerited. A free Gift (24).

The Meritorious cause The Redemption (24).

Through faith, the Propitiatory (25).

The Righteous cause In His blood (25).

15

These all converge in one ultimate object, namely, the declaration of the righteousness of God Himself, even

though He justifies ungodly sinners through faith. It may be worth restating thus:

The free gift ü

The redemption ï ì The declaration

ý unto eis í of God’s own

The faith ï î righteousness

The blood þ

As we progress in the knowledge of God and His ways, the apostle can leave these figures, and express our

complete standing in such terms as ‘Accepted in the Beloved’; ‘Made meet for the inheritance of the saints in light’;

‘Ye have put on (reference to clothing enduo) the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true

holiness’.

Let us conclude this brief attempt to set forth one of the aspects of redeeming love, by quoting from the well

known words of Luke 15. We are not told in so many words that the Prodigal Son was in rags but the fact that he

was in want, and fain would have filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat, reveal enough to help us

realize his destitute condition. On the way back home he rehearsed what he would say, but his father cut him short.

‘Bring forth the best robe, and put it on him; and put a ring on his hand, and shoes on his feet ... For this my son

was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found’ (Luke 15:22,24).

‘He raiseth up the poor out of the dust, and lifteth up the beggar from the dunghill, to set them among princes’ (1

Sam. 2:8).

‘Him that was possessed with the devil ... sitting, and clothed, and in his right mind’ (Mark 5:15).

? RAGS or ROBES ?

ALL OF ONE 16

All of One

(Hebrews 2:11)

From one point of view, the great Sacrifice for sin was offered to God on our account, quite independently of

any act or association of our own. ‘In due time (course) Christ died for the ungodly’ (Rom. 5:6). However, we miss

much, and our preaching and teaching suffer, if we do not perceive the richer and deeper doctrine embodied in the

Old Testament Kinsman Redeemer, and implied by such terms as ‘The Firstfruits of them that slept’, or ‘For since

by man came death, by Man came also the resurrection of the dead’ (1 Cor. 15:20,21). To this most wonderful and

essential aspect of redeeming love we now turn our attention.

As we have used a reference found in Hebrews chapter 2 as the title of this study, let us make a beginning there.

And first note how ‘oneness’ is stated or implied in the context.

‘All of One’

A 2:11 Oneness in sanctification ‘all of one’

B 2:14 Oneness in nature ‘He took part of the same’

C 2:14,15 Oneness in Death

B 2:16,17 Oneness. Not angels ‘Made like unto His

brethren’

A 2:18 Oneness in Temptation ‘He Himself’

If we go back into chapter 2 a little, we shall see that there is a further reference to this oneness. Angels are not

included, but it is Man, made a little lower than the angels, that is in view. So ‘We see Jesus, who was made a little

lower than the angels for the suffering of death’ (Heb. 2:9) and that ‘Verily He took not on Him the nature of angels;

but He took on Him the seed of Abraham (Heb. 2:16).

As a consequence of this ‘oneness’ we read:

‘For which cause He is not ashamed to call them brethren’ (Heb. 2:11).

This oneness of nature, this identification of the Saviour with the saved, is essential:

‘Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same;

that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; And deliver them who

through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage’ (Heb. 2:14,15).

When we turn to Hebrews 10, we have another contrast instituted. This time not a contrast with ‘angels’ but the

Old Testament ceremonial sacrifices, and once again the Redeemer is seen to be ‘man’.

‘For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins. Wherefore ... He saith ... a body

hast Thou prepared Me ... Lo, I come ... we are sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once

for all’ (Heb. 10:4-10).

Yet once again, in chapter 13, in contrast with the Levitical law which ordained that the sacrifice was burnt

‘without the camp’, the epistle continues:

‘Wherefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered without the gate. Let us

go forth therefore unto Him without the camp’ (Heb. 13:12,13).

It will be observed that Hebrews 2:11; 10:4-10 and 13:12 deal with sanctification. Leaving this most important

phase of redemption for a while, let us look at the way this ‘oneness’ with the Redeemer as ‘Man’ is associated with

Justification, which is the key word of the epistle to the Romans.

ALL OF ONE 17

ROMANS 8

Toward the close of Romans 8 we read:

‘For whom He did foreknow, He also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be

the Firstborn among many brethren’ (Rom. 8:29).

‘He is not ashamed to call them brethren’ Sanctification (Heb. 2:11).

‘The Firstborn among many brethren’ Justification (Rom. 8:29,30).

It will be seen that Justification is in view by the wording of verse 30. The key word of Hebrews 2 and of

Romans 8 is ‘sonship’. The chapter divisions of our Bible, while most useful to facilitate reference and the use of

Concordance and Lexicon, sometimes veil truth that would otherwise be seen.

The word ‘Son’ Greek huios occurs 24 times in Hebrews and 12 times in Romans, to which must be added three

occurrences of huiothesia in Romans 8:

Huios and huiothesia in Romans 8

A 1-4 No condemnation His Own Son sent

B 5-15- Led now Sons

C -15-17- Spirit Itself Sonship (Adoption)

D -17-21 Suffering and Glory Sons manifested

C 22-28 Spirit Itself Sonship (Adoption)

B 29,30 Conformed then Son

A 31-39 No condemnation His Own Son Delivered up

‘For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God (has done by) sending His own Son in

the ... flesh’ (Rom. 8:3).

Two most important items must here be considered:

(1) The flesh, in man, by reason of the Fall, is sinful and under a law of sin and death.

(2) To be our Redeemer, the Saviour came

(a) In true flesh and blood, but

(b) Only in the ‘likeness’ of ‘sinful’ flesh.

Hebrews 2:14 shows that He ‘took part of the same’ but 2 Corinthians 5:21 tells us that:

‘He hath made Him to be sin for us, Who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in Him’.

He was indeed, the ‘Second Man’ and ‘the last Adam’, but unlike the first man, He was ‘Holy, harmless,

undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens’ (Heb. 7:26). So Romans 8:29 tells us that we

shall one day be ‘one with Him’.

THE IMAGE OF THE HEAVENLY

1 Corinthians 15

The conformity to the Image of His Son to which the redeemed have been predestinated, awaits the Resurrection,

and in 1 Corinthians 15 this feature is developed.

‘As we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly’ (1 Cor. 15:49).

This passage is a reference back to Adam (1 Cor. 15:45-48). Adam has been mentioned earlier in 1 Corinthians 15,

and care must be exercised in interpreting this important passage:

‘As in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive’ (1 Cor. 15:22).

18

The reader has probably met the argument that is built upon this reference for ‘Universalism’, but we would

remind ourselves that this passage is not correctly quoted. It does not simply put before us a proposition to prove

Universalism, and this is shown to be so by a complete quotation of the verse:

‘FOR as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive’

This is no mere ‘hair-splitting’. ‘For’ is a logical connective, and if we ignore or omit this link, we isolate the

passage from its context, and the Bible by this treatment becomes ‘a nose of wax’. ‘For’ looks back, and we find

Paul is speaking of those which are fallen asleep ‘In Christ’. Does anyone affirm that by this term ‘In Christ’ Paul

could possibly be embracing all men without exception? Christ is called ‘The FIRST FRUITS’ of them that slept.

Now it is the nature of a ‘Firstfruits’ that it should be of the same kind as the bulk of the harvest. At the Passover

period, a few early ripened ears of barley were gathered and offered in the temple as a ‘Firstfruits’ (Lev. 23:10).

Now a sheaf of barley could be a pledge of a future barley harvest, but it could not be a pledge that ‘tares’ would

also be reaped and harvested. This would be a monstrous supposition. At the harvest at the end of the age wheat is

gathered and harvested, tares are gathered and burned. The word ‘Firstfruits’ Greek aparche occurs in the New

Testament as follows, and all can see its Scriptural implications and necessary limitations. Discrimination, not

Universalism, is implied in every reference. Romans 8:23; 11:16; 16:5; 1 Corinthians 15:20,23; 16:15; James 1:18;

Revelation 14:4. We pursue the argument of 1 Corinthians 15:20 into verse 21 which again commences with ‘For’.

Christ is the Firstfruits of those under review. Now a further link in the logical chain:

‘For (i.e. arising out of the implication of the term "firstfruit") since by man came death, by Man came also the

resurrection of the dead’, which is then further explained in verse 22. Paul was not concerned with the state of the

unsaved. He was dealing with those who had fallen asleep ‘In Christ’ and he says in effect ‘For, as surely as all

must die who are "In Adam", so surely must all live again who are "In Christ"‘ and adds, ‘but each one (hekastos) in

his own rank’:

(1) Christ the Firstfruits.

(2) Afterward they that are Christ’s at His coming.

(3) Then cometh the end.

The essence of this wondrous section is ‘All are one’ with their Kinsman-Redeemer, and are the subject of this

wondrous chapter.

One more passage bearing upon the theme of ‘All of one’ is John 17. Once again, as we saw in the opening of

this study, ‘sanctification’ is in view:

‘Sanctify them through Thy truth ... And for their sakes I sanctify Myself, that they also might be sanctified

through the truth’ (John 17:17-19).

Their sanctification is linked with His voluntary sanctification ‘for their sakes’, and this leads to the most intimate

and wonderful ‘oneness’ that the mind can conceive ‘That they all may be ONE’ (verse 21), the ‘all’ being the

apostles, and those which should afterward ‘believe’:

‘As Thou, Father, art in Me, and I in Thee, that they also may be one in Us: that the world may believe that Thou

hast sent Me.

And the glory which Thou gavest Me I have given them; that they may be one, even as We are one:

I in them, and Thou in Me, that they may be made perfect in (perfected into) one; and that the world may know

that Thou hast sent Me, and hast loved them, as Thou hast loved Me’ (John 17:21-23).

Throughout the New Testament the most intimate relationship is seen in all its lovely facets existing between

The Father and The Son, and here the believer is taken up into this relationship ‘sons’ in the SON. Loved as He, and

sharing the glory that the Son as the Redeemer has received on our behalf! We are permitted in this chapter to draw

near and hear our Saviour’s converse with His Father, but we are quite unable and unwilling to put the gracious

prayer on the dissecting table; we would rather take off our shoes from off our feet and recognize that we here stand

upon holy ground. There are other passages which stress this ‘oneness’ which has been our theme. The relation of

Christ as Head and the Church of the One body with all. In the dispensation of the Mystery, this oneness is

expressed in the Unity of the Spirit, where Christ is the ‘one Lord’ (Eph. 4:4-6). It is also evident in the need to

ALL OF ONE 19

attain unto the Unity of the Faith, where the centre is ‘The Son of God’ (Eph. 4:12,13), and to express this oneness

by holding the Head, which is Christ, and remembering that ‘the whole body is fitly joined together and compacted

by that which every joint supplieth’ (Eph. 4:15,16).

In other callings and dispensations, this Unity is manifested in other ways and by other symbols. For example:

‘And other sheep I have, which are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear My voice; and

there shall be one fold (flock), and one Shepherd’ (John 10:16).

or again, in connexion with restored Israel:

‘Moreover, thou son of man, take thee one stick, and write upon it, For Judah, and for the children of Israel his

companions: then take another stick, and write upon it, For Joseph, the stick of Ephraim, and for all the house of

Israel his companions ... and join them one to another into one stick; and they shall become one in thine hand ...

And I will make them one nation in the land ... and one King shall be King to them all’ (Ezek. 37:16-22).

One Lord, One Shepherd, One King, for the Church and the gathered nations, ‘All of one’ is indeed a basic and

all-covering truth.

Beneath all this oneness lies a deep and most significant work of Redemption, without which this ‘oneness’

would be a dream, a cypher, ‘a limbeck only’. We therefore draw attention to a most wonderful and basic aspect of

redemption comprised under the title:

THE KINSMAN-REDEEMER

It is not possible to consider the teaching of Scripture with regard to Redemption, without also taking into

account the teaching of the same Word as to the Redeemer. Redemption is not an abstract thing, it is the work of a

Personal Redeemer. That Redeemer is set forth in clear, unmistakable characters, and when we have grasped the

essential conditions that had to be fulfilled before one could become a Redeemer, we shall at the same time grasp

more fully the scope of Redemption itself.

In the A.V. Old Testament there is but one word translated Redeemer, that word being goel. The book which

most vividly portrays the Scriptural features of the Redeemer is the book of Ruth. A certain man left

Bethlehem-Judah, by reason of famine, and went into Moab, taking with him his wife Naomi and two sons, Mahlon

and Chilion. There Elimelech dies, and the two sons marry. They also die, and Naomi, hearing that the Lord had

visited His people with bread, arises to return to Bethlehem. The two daughters-in-law go with her, but one, Orpah,

turns back, Ruth alone accompanying Naomi back to Bethlehem, arriving at the beginning of barley harvest, and

therefore at the time of the Passover.

A kinsman of Naomi’s husband, a man of wealth, named Boaz, owned fields of corn, and into this man’s field

Ruth goes to glean. Boaz deals very kindly with her on account of her faithful conduct toward Naomi. When Ruth

returned with the result of her day’s gleaning and told Naomi of the attitude of Boaz, Naomi praised the Lord, and

said, ‘The man is near of kin unto us, one of our next kinsmen’ (Ruth 2:20). The A.V. margin reads ‘One that hath

right to redeem’. Acting upon Naomi’s instructions Ruth lies at the feet of Boaz on the threshing floor, and at

midnight upon being discovered Ruth answers, ‘I am Ruth thine handmaid: spread therefore thy wing (or skirt,

A.V.) over thine handmaid; for thou art a near kinsman’ (3:9). Again the A.V. margin reads, ‘One that hath right to

redeem’. Boaz now reveals a fact that made a pause in the accomplishment of Naomi’s purpose.

‘It is true that I am thy near kinsman: howbeit there is a kinsman nearer than I. Tarry this night, and it shall be in

the morning, that if he will perform unto thee the part of a kinsman, well; let him do the kinsman’s part: but if he

will not do the part of a kinsman to thee, then will I do the part of a kinsman to thee, as the LORD liveth’ (Ruth

3:12,13).

lt is evident from what has been already quoted that pity, love, power, or any other attribute associated in our

minds with Redemption cannot be put into operation until kinship is established.

The fourth chapter of Ruth shows us Boaz obtaining the right of redemption, and putting it into operation:

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‘Then went Boaz up to the gate, and sat him down there: and, behold, the kinsman of whom Boaz spake came

by’ (Ruth 4:1).

Boaz puts before this kinsman the case of Naomi, saying:

‘If thou wilt redeem it, redeem it: but if thou wilt not redeem it, then tell me, that I may know: for there is none to

redeem it beside thee; and I am after thee. And he said, I will redeem it’ (Ruth 4:4).

When, however, Boaz gave this kinsman to understand that the redemption of the inheritance of Naomi involved

the raising up of the name of the dead husband of Ruth, the kinsman withdrew. The law says:

‘If thy brother be waxen poor, and hath sold away some of his possession, and if any of his kin come to redeem

it, then shall he redeem that which his brother sold’ (Lev. 25:25) .

‘If brethren dwell together, and one of them die, and have no child, the wife of the dead shall not marry without

unto a stranger: her husband’s brother (margin, next kinsman) shall go in unto her, and take her to him to wife,

and perform the duty of an husband’s broher (next kinsman) unto her. And it shall be, that the firstborn which

she beareth shall succeed in the name of his brother which is dead, that his name be not put out of Israel. And if

the man like not to take his brother’s wife (margin next kinsman’s wife), then let his brother’s wife go up to the

gate unto the elders, and say, My husband’s brother refuseth to raise up unto his brother a name in Israel, he will

not perform the duty of my husband’s brother (next kinsman) ... Then shall his brother’s wife come unto him in

the presence of the elders, and loose his shoe from off his foot, and spit in his face, and shall answer and say, So

shall it be done unto that man that will not build up his brother’s house. And his name shall be called in Israel,

The house of him that hath his shoe loosed’ (Deut. 25:5-10).

Boaz said before the elders:

‘Ye are witnesses this day, that I have bought all that was Elimelech’s, and all that was Chilion’s and Mahlon’s,

of the hand of Naomi. Moreover Ruth the Moabitess, the wife of Mahlon, have I purchased to be my wife, to

raise up the name of the dead upon his inheritance, that the name of the dead be not cut off from among his

brethren, and from the gate of his place: Ye are witnesses this day’ (Ruth 4:9,10).

IMMANUEL, GOD WITH US

Every occurrence of the word ‘Redeemer’ in the A.V. Old Testament is a translation of goel and means, as in

Ruth, the Kinsman-Redeemer. The many passages in Isaiah where the word occurs reveal most plainly that the

Redeemer is Jehovah. He is called ‘The Holy One of Israel’, ‘Creator’, ‘King of Israel’, ‘LORD of Hosts’, ‘The

LORD thy God’, ‘Him Whom man despiseth and the nation abhorreth’, ‘The Mighty One of Jacob’, ‘The God of the

whole earth shall He be called’, ‘The Redeemer shall come to Zion’, ‘Thou, O LORD, art our Father, our Redeemer

... from everlasting’ (olam).

If we quote no further, we have given sufficient to cause the careful reader to think. If Jehovah, the Creator, is at

the same time Kinsman to the sons of Adam, then the remaining testimony of Isaiah is absolutely necessary to make

the revelation rational. God must become flesh and blood. Isaiah names this mighty Redeemer, Immanuel, God

with us. Not only so, he reveals in plain terms that Jehovah was to be born of a virgin, ‘Behold, a virgin shall

conceive, and bear a son, and shall call His name Immanuel’. The fulfilment of this remarkable statement is found

in Matthew 1:20-23. John, in the opening verses of his Gospel, also reveals this mighty truth. ‘The Word was God’,

‘The Word was made (became) flesh ... the only begotten of the Father’. In Galatians 4:4,5 the apostle passes from

the question of the heir and the inheritance, to Christ as the Kinsman-Redeemer of that inheritance:

‘When the fulness of the time was come, God sent forth His Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to

redeem ... ‘

Hebrews 2:14,15 speaks of this kinsman in strong terms:

‘Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same;

that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who

through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage’.

ALL OF ONE 21

The office of the Kinsman-Redeemer is twofold, and that twofold character is plainly indicated in Hebrews,

chapter 2. ‘Flesh and blood ... destroy ... deliver’.

The very same word (goel) which we have looked at in the rendering Kinsman-Redeemer is also translated, The

Revenger, in the title ‘the revenger of blood’ (Num. 35:19. etc.). ‘The day of vengeance is in Mine heart, and the

year of My redeemed is come’ (Isa. 63:4) shews the intimate association of the two thoughts. Christ as the

Kinsman-Redeemer came to destroy and to deliver. This is not only set forth in Hebrews, chapter 2, but in 1 John

3:5-8:

‘And ye know that He was manifested to take away our sins; and in Him is no sin ... For this purpose the Son of

God was manifested, that He might destroy the works of the devil’.

The Lord Jesus Christ bears the title ‘Firstborn of every creature’ (Col. 1:15). This tells us that He stands

intimately related to the whole creation, and renders the deliverance of the groaning creation a possibility, for the

right of redemption is His. The same Lord is also ‘The Seed of the Woman’, ‘The Last Adam’, ‘The Second Man’

and ‘The Son of Man’. This renders possible the wondrous redemptive words of 1 Corinthians 15:22:

‘For as in Adam all die, even so in Christ shall all be made alive’.

Christ moreover is the Seed of Abraham, and this brings the blessings of Abraham to both Jew and Gentile (Gal. 3).

He is moreover the Son of David, and can alone redeem the forfeited Kingdom. Possibly the reader will by this time

perceive the fallacy which lies in the argument of those who speak of Christ as either Redeemer or King. Matthew

chapter 1, brings into close association ‘Son of David’, ‘Son of Abraham’, ‘Jesus, Who saves His people from their

sins’ and ‘Immanuel, God with us’.

We feel that the place of redemption in the purpose

of the ages has been very much misunderstood, but

its consideration we must leave until other phases of

the subject have been seen. Sufficient for our purpose

has been brought together. Christ is the true Kinsman-Redeemer, and the birth of Christ at Bethlehem was absolutely

essential to His redeeming work.

THE NEAREST OF KIN WHO FAILED

When studying the book of Ruth we are at first somewhat disappointed to find that Boaz, the mighty and

merciful deliverer of the afflicted, was not the nearest of kin:

‘It is true that I am thy near kinsman: howbeit there is a kinsman nearer than I’ (Ruth 3:12).

If Boaz be typical of Christ, of whom is the nearer kinsman typical? In Psalm 49:7,8 we read:

‘No man can by any means redeem (Heb. padah) his brother, nor give to God a ransom for him (for the

redemption of their soul is so costly that it ceaseth for ever)’ (Author’s translation).

The word ‘ceaseth’ is sometimes translated ‘forbear’, ‘leave off’, the idea being that the redemption of man is so

infinitely beyond his own powers that it must be left alone, if no redeemer is to be found except man himself,

redemption is impossible.

The nearest of kin, nearer than Boaz himself, is mankind. Man however can never be his own saviour. He

stands exposed before all as a failure. Every son of Adam bears the reproach of Deuteronomy 25:10 :

‘His name shall be called in Israel, The house of him that hath his shoe loosed’.

In Isaiah 59:20 we read:

‘And the Redeemer (goel) shall come to Zion’.

This Redeemer is the Lord Jesus Christ, and the context suggests the kinsman nearer than He, who failed:

‘And He saw that there was no man, and wondered that there was no intercessor: therefore His arm brought

salvation’ (Isa. 59:16).

22

The word translated intercessor, occurs in Isaiah 53:6 and 12. ‘The Lord hath made to meet on Him the iniquity

of us all’, and ‘made intercession for the transgressors’. Man’s failure is further set forth in such passages as

Romans 8:3 together with the triumph of Christ, the true Redeemer:

‘For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending His own Son IN THE LIKENESS

of sinful flesh (did)’.

The utter inability of man by nature to accomplish his own redemption is too fully set forth in Scripture, and is

too really fundamental to need further proof. The whole plan of redemption presupposes man’s hopeless state, and

indicates most clearly the antitype of the man who failed to redeem his brother’s forfeited inheritance.

RESURRECTION LIFE

The declared purpose of the redemption by the kinsman-redeemer in the law, and in the book of Ruth, is ‘to raise

up the name of the dead upon his inheritance’. The firstborn which the wife of the dead man bears as a result of the

kinsman taking her to wife ‘shall succeed in the name of his brother which is dead, that his name be not put out of

Israel’ (Deut. 25:6).

Types fail, and wherever resurrection is typified a certain amount of accommodation is necessitated. When the

death and resurrection of Christ was set forth by the killing of a bird and the setting free of a bird, two birds were

necessary, but not to set forth two Persons; so with this great type of the redemption set forth in Ruth and the law. It

was not possible for the dead man to be brought to life again in order that he may enjoy his inheritance. That is

redemption in reality, but in the type his name is perpetuated as a symbol of himself. The idea of new life as a result

of redemption is suggested in the prayer of Psalm 119:154 :

‘Plead my cause, and deliver me (as a kinsman-redeemer): quicken me according to Thy word’.

Psalm 69, so full of Messianic prophecy, suggests a similar thought:

‘Draw nigh unto my soul, and redeem it’ (verse 18).

Hebrews, chapter 5 tells us that Christ prayed unto Him that was able to save Him out of death and that He was

heard. This could not possibly mean that the Saviour sought to escape death, but it means, as Psalm 16 so fully

declares, that His soul was not left in Sheol, in other words, redemption here indicates new life in resurrection.

Psalm 103:4 includes among the ‘benefits’ meet for thanksgiving, ‘Who redeemeth thy life from destruction’.

Hosea however most powerfully sets forth this glorious goal of redemption:

‘I will ransom them from the power of the grave; I will redeem them from death’ (Hosea 13:14).

We had occasion to quote Psalm 49 when explaining the nearer kinsman than Boaz. This Psalm also strongly

emphasizes that resurrection is the one grand effect of the Hebrew conception of redemption:

‘None of them can by any means redeem his brother ... that he should still live for ever, and not see corruption’

(Psa. 49:7-9) .

The testimony of Job 19:25-27 is to the same effect:

‘I know that my Redeemer (ever) lives,

And at the latter day on earth shall stand;

And after (worms) this body have consumed,

Yet in my flesh I shall Eloah see:

Whom I, e’en I, shall see upon my side,

Mine eyes shall see Him - stranger, now, no more:

(For this) my inmost soul with longing waits’

(New Metrical Version.- See Companion Bible).

Redemption enables us to look death in the face and call it by its ugly name. It enables us to speak of corruption

and the grave, and to recognise that death is an ‘enemy’. Philosophy and Religion glory over death. They speak of

death as a bright angel, as the great adventure, as transition, as the gate of life - anything but its true character. The

ALL OF ONE 23

believer who realizes redemption is delivered from the bondage of the fear of death. We quote the passage from

Hebrews 2 again:

‘Forasmuch then as the children are partakers of flesh and blood, He also Himself likewise took part of the same;

that through death He might destroy him that had the power of death, that is, the devil; and deliver them who

through fear of death were all their lifetime subject to bondage’ (Heb. 2:14,15).

The great goal of redemption as applied to the wide circle of creation is expressed in terms that run parallel with

the hope of Job:

‘The creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of CORRUPTION into the glorious liberty of the

children of God ... the redemption of our body’ (Rom. 8:21-23).

Christ Himself expresses this glorious truth in Revelation 1:17,18 :

‘Fear not ... I am He that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of

hell (Hades) and of death’.

REDEMPTION AND ITS IMPLICATIONS

Here, in this typical story and significant aspect of redemption we have the basis upon which the apostle could

rest his statement:

‘He that sanctifieth, and they who are sanctified, are:

ALL OF ONE’

Lord Jesus, are we one with Thee?

O height, O depth of love!

In Thee we died upon the tree,

In Thee we live above.

Such was Thy grace, that for our sake

Thou did’st from heaven come down;

Of flesh and blood Thou did’st partake,

In all our misery one.

Ascended now, in glory bright,

Still one with us Thou art;

Nor life nor death, nor depth nor height

Thy saints and Thee can part.

Soon, soon shall come that glorious day

When, seated on Thy throne,

Thou shalt to wondering worlds display

That Thou with us art one.

THE LORDØS ANOINTED 24

THE LORD’S ANOINTED

‘Jesus is the Christ’. John, at the close of the Gospel that bears his name, tells us that the object before him, as

he selected what signs he should incorporate in his record, was:

‘That ye might believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing ye might have life through His

name’ (John 20:31).

His name ‘Jesus’, said Matthew, means that He is the Saviour:

‘For He shall save His people from their sins’ (Matt. 1:21) .

When John speaks of Him as ‘Jesus the Christ’ he is using the word ‘Christ’ as a title which has already been

explained in earlier chapters. ‘Jesus’ is His name, ‘The Christ’ is His title. We cannot go further with our study

with any hope of arriving at the intention of Scripture if we ignore these divinely inspired definitions.

In chapter 1 of John’s Gospel ‘Rabbi’ is translated, ‘Messias’ is translated, and ‘Cephas’ is translated (John

1:38,41,42), so John has before his mind’s eye, those to whom Hebrew would be an unknown tongue. He wrote for

‘the world’, after the Jew had been dismissed at

Acts 28:

‘We have found the Messias, which is, being interpreted, the Christ’.

‘We have found Him, of Whom Moses in the law, and the prophets, did write, Jesus of Nazareth, the son of

Joseph’ (John 1:41,45).

It is a characteristic of Greek, that proper names usually end in as, os and us, as in this very context, Elijah is

Elias, Andrew is Andreas, Simon is Simonas, Peter is Petros, Philip is Philippos. So Messiah is Messias. John 1:41

informs us that Jesus is the Messiah, the Greek equivalent being ‘The Christ’. John gives evidence that the question

concerning the advent of the Messiah was in many minds, and Mark tells us that the Saviour opened His ministry

with the words ‘The time is fulfilled’ (Mark 1:15). So it is not surprising that when John the Baptist was asked by a

deputation of priests and Levites sent to him saying ‘Who art thou?’ he confessed, and denied not; but confessed,

saying:

‘I am not the Christ’, or as we can now retranslate it ‘I am not the Messiah’ (John 1:20).

The recognition of the Messiahship of Jesus was not limited to Israel, for in John chapter 4, it is a Samaritan

woman who said ‘I know that Messias cometh, which is called Christ’, and to her came the revelation:

‘I that speak unto thee am HE’.

The woman of Samaria went back to her city, and said:

‘Come, see a man, which told me all things that ever I did: is not this THE CHRIST?’

and later the men of Samaria said:

‘We have heard Him ourselves, and know that this is indeed the Christ, the Saviour of the world’ (John

4:25,26,29,42).

It does not escape our notice how personal all this testimony is. Andrew said ‘We have found the Messias’,

Philip said ‘We have found Him’, the Samaritan woman said ‘Come see a man ... the Christ’.

After an absence from Jerusalem in Galilee, the Saviour returned at the feast of tabernacles, and some of the

people said:

‘Is not this He, Whom they seek to kill? But, lo, He speaketh boldly, and they say nothing unto Him. Do the

rulers know indeed that this is THE VERY CHRIST?’ (John 7:25,26).

Others said:

‘When Christ cometh, will He do more miracles than these which this man hath done?’ (John 7:31).

THE LORDØS ANOINTED 25

Prejudice is evident in the next altercation:

‘Others said, This is the Christ. But some said, Shall Christ come out of Galilee?’ (John 7:41).

That the question persisted is evident, for at the feast of dedication the Jews said:

‘How long dost Thou make us to doubt? If Thou be the Christ, tell us plainly. Jesus answered them, I told you,

and ye believed not: the works that I do in My Father’s name, they bear witness of Me’ (John 10:24,25).

and earlier He had said:

‘Ye search the Scriptures; for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which testify of Me. And

ye will not come to Me, that ye might have life’ (John 5:39,40).

When Martha was put to the test regarding the resurrection with the question ‘Believest thou this?’, she did not

reply by merely saying ‘yes’ or making a confession of faith that embraced any aspect of Resurrection, but said:

‘Yea, Lord: I believe that Thou art THE CHRIST (i.e. The Messiah), the Son of God, Which should come into the

world’ (John 11:23-27).

With the close of John 12, the Gospel of John brings the record of Christ’s public ministry to an end. With the

opening of the thirteenth chapter He concentrates His attention upon the twelve apostles and the approaching

change. So the last reference to ‘the Christ’ before the closure, is found in John 12:34 :

‘We have heard out of the law that Christ abideth for ever: and how sayest thou, The Son of Man must be lifted

up? Who is this Son of Man?’.

So, some could see that He was the One of whom Moses and the prophets did write, others failed, for, said the

Lord, ‘Had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed Me’. The Jews were offended at the idea of a suffering

Messiah, or One Who came from Galilee or Nazareth (John 7:41). They ‘trusted in Moses’, but they did not believe

the testimony of Moses (John 3:14-16; 5:39-47).

Let us now retranslate John 20:31 and bring it into line with what we have seen, as to this title ‘The Christ’.

‘But these are written, that ye might believe that Jesus is THE ANOINTED, THE MESSIAH ... ‘

The Christ is the Anointed or the Messiah, but the ‘explanation’ still needs explaining, for the Messiah is an Hebrew

word. In the English A.V. of the Old Testament the word Messiah occurs but twice, namely in Daniel 9:25,26 :

‘Messiah the Prince’.

‘And after threescore and two weeks shall Messiah be cut off, but not for Himself’.

The prejudice and blindness that led to Israel’s rejection of their Messiah persists to this day, as we have

experienced when talking to the Jews, for they are under a prohibition imposed by the Rabbis ‘not to attempt to

compute the days of the Messiah’, so that such chapters as Daniel 9 or Isaiah 53 are closed to them. Israel would

probably have welcomed a King Who rid them of the Roman yoke, but the Messiah was a King-Priest after the order

of Melchisedec, and would first rid them from the yoke of sin, which was not so acceptable. To be told ‘Messiah

shall be cut off, and have nothing’, to realize that ‘He was to be despised and rejected of men’, was something

repulsive to all their upbringing:

‘For they that dwell at Jerusalem, and their rulers, because they knew Him not, nor yet the voices of the prophets

which are read every sabbath day, they have fulfilled them in condemning HIM’ (Acts 13:27).

Returning to the word Messiah, it is derived from the Hebrew Mashach meaning ointment. The ‘oil of holy

ointment’ was made from a divinely given recipe (Exod. 30:23,24), compounded after the art of the apothecary and

used for the anointing of Prophet, Priest and King, the ark, candlestick, laver and other vessels of the tabernacle, and

also the tabernacle itself.

‘Whosoever compoundeth any like it, or whosoever putteth any of it upon a stranger, shall even be cut off from

his people’ (Exod. 30:33).

26

This anointing is used as a figure in Psalm 133, where the differences between Israel (Mt. Hermon) and Judah (Mt.

Zion) vanish under the unifying anointing of the High Priest:

‘Behold, how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell together in unity! It is like the precious ointment’

This ‘oneness’ is referred to in Hebrews 2, where speaking of sanctification, the apostle says:

‘Both He that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one: for which cause He is not ashamed to call

them brethren’ (Heb. 2:11).

We naturally think of David as the anointed king (1 Sam. 16:13; 2 Sam. 5:3), and Aaron as the anointed priest

(Exod. 30:30). For an example of the anointing of a prophet we turn to 1 Kings 19:16 and 2 Kings 2:9. It is

interesting to note that Elisha desired a ‘double portion’ of Elijah’s spirit, and that, whereas Elijah performed eight

miracles, Elisha performed sixteen. There is possibly an allusion to this in the Saviour’s words:

‘Greater works than these shall he do; because I go unto My Father’ (John 14:12).

We read that the Lord, before His baptism of suffering and death, was ‘straitened’ (Luke 12:50), but after

Pentecost, 3000 were convicted in one day according to Acts 2:41, and 5000 in a few days time (Acts 4:4). As Mark

16:20 says, ‘The (ascended) Lord working with them’.

We must now turn to the New Testament and learn what terms are employed to convey the conception of

anointing and its consequences. The Greek word chrio (Luke 4:18) ‘anoint’ gives us the word Christos, The

Anointed, The Christ or the Messiah.

Two variants of chrio are used enchrio ‘to rub in’(Rev. 3:18); epichrio ‘to rub on’ (John 9:11). Three other words

are used, murizo ‘to rub with aromatic ointment’ (Mark 14:8); and aleipho ‘to anoint with oil’ (Mark 6;13), and

chrisma, the anointing by the Holy Ghost in the shape of spiritual gifts. We give an example of the use of these

words in the Septuagint to make our survey complete:

Aleipho (Ruth 3:3), enchrio (Jer. 4:30), chrio (Exod. 30:26).

While many other lesser details could be added, we must now leave these side issues and concentrate our

attention on the relationship of the Holy Spirit with the Saviour, for Anointing is a type or symbol of the enduement

of the Spirit. First a note on this from Isaiah 11:1,2 :

‘And there shall come forth a rod out of the stem of Jesse, and a Branch shall grow out of His roots: And the

spirit of the LORD shall rest upon Him,

the spirit of wisdom and understanding,

the spirit of counsel and might,

the spirit of knowledge and of the fear of the LORD’.

Christ has a twofold relationship with David:

(1) He is the Son and Seed of David by human birth (Rom. 1:3).

(2) He is both the Root and the Offspring of David, by reason of His twofold nature (Rev. 22:16).

It is as the ‘rod’ out of the ‘stem’ of Jesse, as a ‘branch’ that grows out of his ‘roots’, that we see Him endued

with the Spirit of the Lord. The ‘rod’ is a twig or sucker, and the ‘stem’ is the ‘stock’ of Job 14:8. The word

‘branch’ must not be confused with the Messianic title ‘The Branch’ as found in Isaiah 4:2 or Zechariah 3:8, that

employs a totally different word in the original. The antichristian parody may be seen in Daniel 11:7 where we read

‘But out of a branch of her roots shall one stand up’. The word ‘rest’ in Isaiah 11 is interesting, for it is used for the

‘rest’ for the sole of the foot of ‘the dove’ sent out by Noah (Gen. 8:9), and anticipates the baptism by the Spirit in

the shape of a dove (John 1:32; Matt. 3:16) which was seen ‘abiding’ or ‘lighting’ upon Him. The reader will notice

that in the margin of Isaiah 11:3 ‘quick understanding’ is Hebrew scent or smell. The figure possibly is borrowed

from the rapid moistening of the nostrils by a deer, when startled, to make the scent keen. This enduement of the

Spirit upon the Saviour affected His judgment. (1) He would not judge after the sight of His eyes, neither (2)

reprove after the hearing of His ears. He ‘needed not that any should testify of man: for He knew what was in man’

THE LORDØS ANOINTED 27

(John 2:25). He did ‘nothing of Himself’; as He saw, and as He heard from the Father, so He judged (John 5:19, 30),

and it is in this chapter of John, that, after speaking of the witness of John the Baptist, He said:

‘The Father Himself, Which hath sent Me, hath borne witness of Me. Ye have neither heard His voice at any

time, nor seen His shape’ (John 5:37),

which refers back to the ‘voice’ from heaven and the ‘shape’ as a dove at His baptism with the spirit.

We defer consideration of Isaiah 61:1 until we come to the reference made by our Lord in Luke chapter 4. The

only thing that calls for consideration before we turn to the New Testament is to see how far ‘the anointing’ which is

our theme, is connected with enduement of the Spirit which we have assumed is implied by the title ‘Messiah’ or

‘Christ’. The ministry of the Spirit is associated with the Saviour’s Birth, Growth, Attestation, Testing, Baptism,

Commission, Signs and Miracles, Death and Resurrection, and the overall assurance that the Spirit was not given by

measure unto Him. The angel Gabriel had already announced the approaching birth of the Forerunner, even as the

same angel had revealed to Daniel the time when the Messiah should be born and when He should be cut off, so now

in Luke 2, the fulness of time being come, Gabriel was sent by God to a city of Galilee named Nazareth.

‘To a virgin espoused to a man whose name was Joseph ... of the house and lineage of David’ (Luke 1:27; 2:4).

After quieting Mary’s fears, the angel announced the advent of her child. Mary naturally was amazed and somewhat

disturbed, for as verse 27 says, she was a ‘virgin’ (Gk. parthenos).

‘Then said Mary unto the angel, How shall this be, seeing I know not a man ?

and the angel answered and said unto her:

‘The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee: therefore also that

holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the Son of God’ (Luke 1:34,35).

And in order to reassure her, the angel referred to the condition of her cousin Elizabeth ‘who was called barren’ for

she, too had been promised a child some six months earlier.

‘For with God nothing shall be impossible’ (Luke 1:37).

Matthew says:

‘Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they

came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost’ (Matt. 1:18),

and Joseph was assured by an angel of the Lord, not to fear to take to himself Mary his wife:

‘For that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost’ (Matt. 1:20).

On the first page of the Old Testament, a man named Adam comes into existence without a human mother, and

on the first page of the New Testament, is born, the second Man, and the last Adam without a human father.

Returning to Luke’s account, given in chapter 1:35, let us note carefully the word ‘overshadow’ Gk. episkiazo. The

word is used on three occasions in the New Testament:

(1) The overshadowing of Mary (Luke 1:35).

(2) The overshadowing at the Transfiguration (Matt. 17:5).

(3) The overshadowing miracle of healing (Acts 5:15).

Episkiazo occurs in the LXX in Exodus 40:35 ‘Because the cloud overshadowed’, and also in Psalm 91:4 and in

Psalm 140:7 where we read:

‘Thou hast covered (overshadowed) my head in the day of battle’.

Now the same Hebrew word thus translated comes in Psalm 139:13

‘Thou hast covered me in my mother’s womb’,

and the context speaks of the wonder of child-birth.

28

‘Thine eyes did see my substance, yet being unperfect; and in Thy book all my members were written, which in

continuance were fashioned, when as yet there was none of them’ (Psa. 139:16).

It will be seen from these references that the promised overshadowing of the Holy Ghost was to protect Mary’s

unborn Son from attack as ‘in the day of battle’. We can have no hesitation as to where the attack would come from,

but ‘that holy thing’ was preserved that He might one day ‘destroy (undo) the works of the Devil’ (1 John 3:8).

While tradition has been busy with apocryphal miracles and precociousness, the Scriptural record of the Saviour’s

infant years is simple and sane. The parallels between the account of the growth of John the Baptist and the Saviour,

as recorded in Luke chapters 1 and 2, are intentional.

JOHN THE BAPTIST

‘And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, and was in the deserts till the day of his shewing unto Israel’

(Luke 1:80).

THE SON OF GOD

‘And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon Him’ (Luke

2:40)

At the age of twelve a Jewish boy became ‘a son of the law’, and when the Saviour was that age, He was found

in the temple ‘sitting in the midst of the doctors, both hearing them, and asking them questions’ (Luke 2:42-49).

Joseph was the legal father of Christ, but when Mary said to Him ‘Thy father and I have sought Thee sorrowing’ He

replied ‘Wist ye not that I must be about My Father’s business’, showing that He realized, at that age, His Divine

Sonship; nevertheless as Philippians tells us, ‘He humbled Himself’, so Luke adds:

(1) He went down to Nazareth, and

(2) Was subject unto them (Luke 2:51).

While we read that Mary and Joseph ‘understood not’ these wonderful things, it is added ‘But His mother kept

all these sayings in her heart’ (Luke 2:50,51). Nothing more is revealed of these early years, but that:

‘Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favour with God and man’ (Luke 2:52).

We can well understand His favour ‘with God’, but how spotless holiness could at the same time be in favour

‘with man’ should at least make us hesitate to prescribe what true sanctification comprises and what it avoids.

Certainly there was no false piety shown by the Son of God in lowly Nazareth. Eighteen years are passed over in

silence, and the story is resumed in the fifteenth year of Tiberius Caesar when the Saviour entered into His public

ministry. The Holy Spirit is associated with three important moments in the initial phases of that service:

(1) His attesting. (2) His testing. (3) His ordination.

HIS ATTESTING

This took place at His baptism in Jordan, when the heaven opened, and the Holy Ghost descended on Him in a

bodily shape like a dove, and a Voice from heaven attested:

‘Thou art My beloved Son; in Thee I am well pleased’ (Luke 3:22).

This, we are told by John in his gospel, was also a witness to John the Baptist himself:

‘And John bare record, saying, I saw the Spirit descending from heaven like a dove, and it abode upon Him.

And I knew Him not ... Upon Whom thou shalt see the Spirit descending, and remaining on Him, the same is He

which baptizeth with the Holy Ghost. And I saw, and bare record that this is the Son of God’ (John 1:32-34).

Later, the Saviour appealed to this attestation, saying:

‘Ye sent unto John, and he bare witness unto the truth ... Ye have neither heard His VOICE at any time, nor seen

His SHAPE’ (John 5:32-38).

The ‘voice’ and the ‘shape’! Following this attestation from heaven, we come to the testing in the wilderness:

THE LORDØS ANOINTED 29

‘Then was Jesus led up of the Spirit into the wilderness to be tempted of the devil’ (Matt. 4:1).

The testing was threefold and the three temptations were parried each time with the words ‘It is written’, the Spirit’s

Sword, the Word of God. Let us notice here this fact for our own guidance. Although the Saviour had this baptism

of the Spirit in full measure, He did not, as He well might, argue with the Devil out of His own store of heavenly

wisdom; He did what His humblest follower can and should do, He relied entirely upon the efficacy of the Word of

God. The Devil was defeated by the threefold assertion ‘It is written’. His anointing by the Holy Ghost did not

change His physical nature, He was ‘an hungred’, and when the battle was over, He did not walk away still unfed

and still independent, for we read ‘Angels came and ministered unto Him’ (Matt. 4:11). Man at the beginning was

tempted in a garden, and a part of every bait was something ‘good for food’, and the insinuation of the serpent ‘Yea,

hath God said, Ye shall not eat of EVERY tree of the garden?’ (Gen. 3:1-6). Israel wept in the wilderness and said:

‘Who shall give us flesh to eat?’ (Num. 11:4).

The three temptations of our Lord touch us all where we are most vulnerable,

(1) Basic survival needs. Bread.

‘Man shall not live by bread alone’

(2) Spiritual pride, ostentatious ‘faith’.

‘Thou shalt (trust but) not tempt the Lord thy God’.

(3) To attain the goal of one’s life by one illicit act. To do ‘a great right’, to be tempted to ‘do a little wrong’.

This has been called:

‘The last infirmity of a noble mind’.

The short cut, the Crown without the Cross, for one act of disloyalty, attacks the sovereignty of God.

‘Thou shalt worship the LORD thy God, and HIM ONLY shalt thou serve’.

Following the temptation, Matthew wrote:

‘From that time Jesus began to preach ... ‘ (Matt. 4:17)

Luke occupies more space to speak of the ordination of the Son of God. Again we note with worshipping

wonder, He Who was Himself ‘The WORD’, nevertheless ‘opened the book’ and ‘found the place where it was

written’, and the place was Isaiah 61. This citation is a practical evidence that the prophecy of Isaiah which we have

today, and which was read in that synagogue of Nazareth nearly two thousand years ago, is practically identical with

the original. The only departure from the normal in our Lord’s procedure was that He read one verse, and one

sentence further, then ‘closed the book’ and ‘sat down’. The rule guiding the selection of portions to be read in the

synagogue was that a reading should comprise about twenty-five verses. The Lord’s attitude therefore was startling.

The words with which He concluded His reading, were ‘To preach the acceptable year of the Lord’, but the

prophecy before Him continued ‘And the day of VENGEANCE of our God’ (Isa. 61:2). Had He continued His reading

therefrom, He could not have said, as He did:

‘This day is this Scripture fulfilled in your ears’ (Luke 4:21).

Many in their ignorance have taught that those who practise ‘Right Division’ cut up the Bible, and include or

omit portions as it suits their prejudices. If we turn to Luke 21:22 we shall read:

‘These be the days of vengeance, that ALL THINGS which are written may be fulfilled’.

Our Saviour shows that ‘right division’ denies no Scripture its place, it only observes that the time for ‘fulfilling’

one part of a verse may be separated from the succeeding sentence by nearly 2000 years, yet both will be fulfilled

without reserve or alteration. Here (Luke 4:18), the Saviour claimed that His anointing was of the Spirit of the Lord,

and that this anointing gave Him authority and commission to ‘preach’.

Attestation, Testing, Ordination, are all in due order and each by the accompanying enduement of the Spirit.

30

Immediately following the baptism at Jordan, and before the commencement of His public ministry, we have the

genealogy of the Saviour set out in detail in Luke 3:23-38. Where Matthew’s purpose is satisfied to trace the

pedigree of the Lord back to Abraham; Luke, the faithful worker with Paul, traces it back to Adam. Matthew gives

us Joseph’s line and this goes back through Solomon and David. Luke however gives us Mary’s line and this goes

back through Nathan and David. The presence of Salathiel in both genealogies, suggests that a marriage took place

about the time of the Babylonian captivity, when it was said of Jechoniah not one of his sons should sit upon the

throne. Both Joseph and Mary were of the lineage of David. The Devil’s attack through the villainy of Jechoniah

was overruled. Christ was still of the seed of David, but through the diversion to Nathan’s descendants, He became

also the seed of the woman who should bruise the serpent’s head. We also read that ‘Jesus Himself began to be

about thirty years of age’ and the fourth chapter of Numbers says seven times over, that those who entered into the

ministry of the tabernacle did so ‘From thirty years old and upward’. We can readily believe that the child of twelve

Who amazed the doctors in the temple could have commenced His ministry then, but He waited patiently and only

broke silence or commenced to preach when His hour had come, and this He referred to as coinciding with His

anointing by the Spirit of the Lord.

Let us now turn our attention to the verbal connexion established in the original Scriptures between the

Anointing, the Spiritual gifts and the title ‘The Christ’.

Chrio to anoint, as we have seen gives us Christos The Anointed, and which in its turn is the equivalent of the

Hebrew Messiah, and includes the threefold office of prophet, priest and king.

Chrisma:

‘Ye have an unction (Chrisma) from the Holy One, and ye know all things’.

‘The anointing (Chrisma) ... ye need not that any man teach you ... the same anointing teacheth you of all things’

(1 John 2:20,27).

This supernatural gift of knowledge is included in the ‘spiritual gifts’ of 1 Corinthians 12:

‘There are diversities of gifts, but the same Spirit ... to one is given by the Spirit the word of wisdom; to another

the word of knowledge by the same Spirit ... for as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the

members of that one body, being many, are one body: SO ALSO IS CHRIST’ (1 Cor. 12:4-12).

If this refers to our Lord, Who is Head of the body the church, it does not seem to follow the apostle’s argument; he

is all the while speaking about the gifts of the Spirit, and diversity in unity is well illustrated by the human body.

‘The Christos’ here refers, not to our Lord, but to the ‘anointed’ body of believers, who by their anointing had many

other gifts beside ‘knowing all things’ that John speaks of in his first epistle. From the conception and birth of the

child ‘Jesus’ to the moment when He through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, every step of

His way, every decision He made, the words He spoke, the miracles He wrought, His estimate of the Old Testament

Scriptures, was under the leading and sanction of the Holy Spirit.

Both the final ‘offering’ and the lifelong freedom from all ‘spot’ are guaranteed by the Spirit that was given

without measure unto Him. Let it be remembered, that if His redeemed people have been slow to recognize the

complete voluntary self-emptying of the Son of God, the devil was fully aware of its significance and importance,

for His first temptation was that of accomplishing something in the strength of His own inherent Godhead, an attack

upon the very purpose of the Incarnation. However much we may wish to know the inner secrets of this ‘mystery of

Godliness’ they are Divinely hid from our eyes. When He emptied Himself, the wisdom, knowledge and power that

were His by right were held at His disposal by the Holy Ghost, and given to Him at those crises in His ministry that

demanded them. Even after He had been raised from the dead, ‘until the day in which He was taken up’, He had

through the Holy Ghost given commandments unto the apostles whom He had chosen (Acts 1:2). His miraculous

birth, with its accompanying freedom from all taint of Adam’s transgression, is attributed to the power and

overshadowing of the Holy Ghost. His opening ministry, commission and proclamation, were directly associated

with the coming of the Holy Ghost upon Him. His subsequent miracles were definitely attributed to the power of

the Holy Ghost, even as His final act of complete self-surrender on the cross of Calvary, was offered ‘through the

eternal Spirit’. ‘No man knoweth the Son, but the Father’ (Matt. 11:27), and all speculation is unwarranted and

approaches blasphemy.

THE LORDØS ANOINTED 31

What we are assured of is that from Birth to Death, in Resurrection and Ascension, every step of the way of the

Saviour along the path of His voluntary self-emptying, was safeguarded by the Spirit that was not given by measure

unto Him. Most of us have been given ‘posers’ by objectors, who in their ignorance or their arrogance demand to

know whether the babe at His mother’s breast, was at the same time conscious that ‘by Him all things were created’.

They ask how can it be possible that He Who made all things could nevertheless sit weary on a well and ask a

woman for a drink. We gladly admit that we have no need to probe into these sacred things. The persistence with

which the Scriptures introduce the ministry of the Holy Ghost at every turn and crisis has been written to satisfy that

believer once and for ever on all such matters and we rejoice in such a Saviour, Who acted throughout the whole

course of His ministry as One Who ‘though He was rich, YET FOR OUR SAKES He became poor’ and instead of using

this most blessed ‘poverty’ as a weapon against His essential Deity or His most wondrous Love, we realize that

‘through His poverty’ we can alone become rich.

One further aspect of this great and important ‘anointing’ must be given a place, but as it will take us back ‘or

ever the earth was’ and deal with things entirely beyond our ken, we shall have to tread carefully. First, we must

turn to Psalm 2, where most will know already that it speaks of the Lord’s ‘Anointed’ (Psa. 2:2). We know that this

anointed One is ‘King’ (Psa. 2:6) and ‘Son’ (Psa. 2:7) but we may not all be aware that the margin of the Authorized

Version reminds us that the word translated ‘set’ in verse 6, is also translatable by the word ‘Anointed’. Let us look

at it this way. From one point of view, the anointing of a king was but pouring a small quantity of oil upon his head.

Unless this anointing has some fuller and richer significance, it does not seem of much importance. We however

may appreciate that ‘anointing’ means ‘appointing’, the anointing oil, or the anointing by the Holy Ghost, always

meant appointing to some office, like that of Prophet, Priest or King.

Now we read in 1 Peter 1:19,20 that the Saviour was foreordained before the foundation of the world, as ‘A

Lamb without blemish and without spot’, and with this association with the beginning of creation, let us turn to two

passages in the book of Proverbs. Most of the Proverbs are either those written by Solomon, or for Solomon’s

guidance, but there are some words of wisdom recorded, of which ‘the words of Agur’ demand attention. We give

Moffatt’s translation, that by its difference from the Authorized Version may stimulate interest:

‘The cry of a man weary with the quest for God:

"I am weary, O God,

weary and worn in vain;

I am dull as a clod,

with no quick brain.

I am no master of thought,

of the Deity I know nought.

Who ever climbed to heaven and then came down?

Who ever gathered the wind in his fingers,

or wrapped the waters in a robe of clouds,

or fixed the bounds of earth?

What is his name, or his son’s name?

You do not know it?’ (Prov. 30:1-4).

There is a strange and startling anticipation of future revelation here, the association of a ‘Son’ with the Creator

nothing positive is said. No man by searching can find out God unto perfection, but there is a gleam here, that,

when time for fulfilment shall have come, it will be proved to be the dawning of the Day star upon the night of

human folly. We turn back to the eighth chapter, where Wisdom is personified, and we might take with us the fact

of a later revelation, that ‘Christ is the Wisdom’ of God.

‘The LORD possessed Me in the beginning of His way, before His works of old’ (Prov. 8:22).

There is no word for ‘in’ in either the Greek version (the Septuagint) or the original Hebrew. We wait however,

until we reach the last book of the Canon before we read that Christ Himself is ‘The Beginning of the creation of

God’ (Rev. 3:14). The word reshith used in Genesis 1:1 is found in Genesis 49:3 where it speaks of Reuben the

firstborn, the beginning of strength, who, however, like Cain was a failure. The word ‘possessed’ takes us to the

beginning, for it is the same word translated ‘gotten’ and is the same word that gives us the name ‘Cain’ in Genesis

32

4:1. Had there been no interference at the seat of life by the serpent, Eve might have been right in expecting that her

first born son was the beginning of the fulfilment of the promise of Genesis 3:15 - for she said:

‘I have gotten a man - Jehovah’.

The Revised Version puts the words ‘with the help of’ in italics. The Hebrew reads ish eth Jehovah ‘A man,

even Jehovah’. She therefore called his name Cain or Qain, from the verb qanah ‘To get, or obtain’. It would seem

that Satan, knowing the truth of Proverbs 8, sought to anticipate the advent of Christ by substituting Cain, who was

‘of that wicked one’. Continuing with Proverbs chapter 8 we read:

‘The LORD possessed Me in the beginning of His way, before His works of old. I was set up ... from the

beginning, or ever the earth was’ (Prov. 8:22,23).

‘Set’ here is the Hebrew nasach, which we have already seen in Psalm 2 ‘I have set My king ... ‘ where the margin

reads ‘Anointed’. The word means literally ‘to pour out’ Isaiah 29:10 and is used of the ‘drink offering’ (Gen.

35:14), and of the action of David when he realized that his desire for a drink of the water of Bethlehem nearly cost

the lives of some of his followers, and so ‘would not drink thereof, but poured it out unto the LORD’ (2 Sam. 23:16).

In Philippians 2 we have first the wonderful revelation of ‘self-emptying’ of the Son of God, the words translated

‘He made Himself of no reputation’ using the verb kenoo ‘to empty’, and then the apostle, following His Lord afar

off, said:

‘Yea, and if I be poured out as a drink offering’ ‘Phil. 2:7,17 Author’s translation).

‘When there were no depths’. Here we have the word used in Genesis 1:2 ‘darkness was upon the face of the

deep’ which in the LXX is the same as that translated ‘the bottomless pit’ (the abyss) in Revelation 20, and so

Proverbs takes us back before Satan and his fall. Moffatt renders verse 27:

‘When He set the heavens up, I was there, when He drew the Vault o’er the abyss’ (Prov. 8:27),

(see also The Companion Bible here) which takes us back to the making of the ‘firmament’, which, according to

Isaiah 40:22, ‘He stretched out ... as a curtain’.

‘Then I was by Him, as One brought up with Him’ (Prov. 8:30).

‘In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God’ (John 1:1).

‘Rejoicing in the habitable part of His earth; and My delights were with the sons of men’ (Prov. 8:31).

The word ‘habitable’ is the Hebrew tebel, which is elsewhere translated ‘world’, and means like its Greek

equivalent oikoumene, the habitable earth. The words in Job 18:18 of the wicked:

‘He shall be driven from light into darkness, and chased out of the world’

should be in mind when we read in the New Testament of those who shall be expelled into ‘outer darkness’ or to

‘the four corners of the earth’, the Tebel being especially that part of the earth early inhabited by man, and adjacent

to what is later called ‘The Holy Land’. We do not pretend to have explained this wonderful passage, feeling great

sympathy with Agur, who, it will be remembered, felt as ‘dull as a clod’ when he attempted to understand the

Creator and His Son, and so we gladly bow in the presence of the inexplicable and admit:

‘Confessedly great is the mystery of godliness, God was manifest in the flesh ... (1 Tim. 3:16 Author’s

translation).

While the ‘anointing’ of Jesus as the Messiah took place in time, there was this earlier ‘appointing’ when He was

verily foreordained, as Peter has said, ‘Holy and without blemish’. However absolute was the self-emptying of the

Son of God, we have no cause to doubt His word, for every step He took from the crib in Bethlehem, to the Cross of

Calvary, was safeguarded, guaranteed and controlled by the Anointing of the Holy Ghost, which was His in such

fulness, that we read:

‘For He Whom God hath sent speaketh the words of God: for God giveth not the Spirit by measure unto Him’

(John 3:34).

THE LORDØS ANOINTED 33

This means measureless enduement for God’s unspeakable Gift, Who came because of love that passeth knowledge

to reveal His unsearchable riches. However great the demand, this anointing was more than adequate. Does one

feel surprised that the writer of these lines, alone at his desk, uttered a silent ‘Hallelujah’?

The names and titles of our Saviour, are of the utmost importance, and as a stimulus to further study and a fuller

acquaintance with the Lord of life and glory, we give a list of some of these names and titles that are found in the

New Testament.

Jesus. Jesus of Nazareth. Immanuel. Beloved. Only Begotten. Son of God, of Man, of David. Jesus Christ.

Christ. Messiah. King. Christ Jesus. Lord. Lord Jesus. The, or Our, Lord Jesus Christ. Jesus Christ our Lord.

Saviour. God and Saviour. Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. Rabbi. Master. Teacher. Lamb. Shepherd. Chief

Shepherd. The Word. The Light. The Bright and Morning Star. The Dayspring. The Holy One. The Just One.

The Judge. Prophet. Servant. Minister. Bishop. Apostle. Prince. High Priest. Captain or Author. Mediator.

Surety. Alpha and Omega. First and Last. Beginning and Ending. Finisher. Amen. Root. Firstborn. Life.

Bread. Faithful and True. Witness. Head. Stone. Rock. Advocate. Deliverer. Door. Forerunner.

Foundation. Governor. Heir. Lion. Passover. True Vine. Way. I am. Last Adam.

(Selected from the book, The New Testament Names and Titles of the Lord of Glory, by Ada R. Habershon).

Such doctrinal phrases as ‘in Christ’, ‘in the Lord’, ‘in Christ Jesus’, ‘in Him in Whom’ are of supreme

importance and for what it may be worth, none of these phrases occur in the epistle to the Hebrews. Another feature

is the distinction that should be observed between the title ‘Christ’ and ‘Lord’, which may be exemplified by looking

at the epistle to the Ephesians. In the doctrinal section, namely Ephesians 1 to 3, the apostle speaks of himself as

‘the prisoner of Jesus Christ’ (Eph. 3:1) but when he opens the corresponding practical section with its insistence on

‘walk’ he calls himself ‘the prisoner of the Lord’ (Eph. 4:1).

‘We have found the Messias, which is, being interpreted, the Christ’ (John 1:41).

‘Believing that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; we have life through His name’ (John 20:31).

‘Blessed be the God and Father

of our Lord Jesus Christ, Who hath

blessed us with all spiritual blessings

in heavenly places .......................................IN CHRIST;

According as He hath chosen us ..................IN HIM

according to the good pleasure

of His will, To the praise of the

glory of His grace, wherein He

hath made us accepted .................................IN THE BELOVED’

(Eph. 1:3-6).

34

SATISFIED

‘As for me, I will behold Thy face in righteousness:

I shall be Satisfied

when I awake, with Thy likeness’ (Psa. 17:15).

‘The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing’ (Eccles. 1:8).

‘We speak the wisdom of God in a mystery ... Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the

heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him. But God hath revealed them unto us

by His Spirit’ (1 Cor. 2:7-10).

What connexion is there between these two passages? There is the background of wisdom mentioned in

1 Corinthians chapter 1 a number of times, and the well-known wisdom of Solomon; there is also the failure of

‘seeing’ and ‘hearing’ when it comes to the deep things of God. Against this background is the word ‘satisfied’ and

this term we desire to explore somewhat carefully, as it pertains to the age-old question ‘If a man die, shall he live

again?’ for that is the baffling problem which provides Ecclesiastes with the remark:

‘The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing’.

The Preacher, the son of David, King in Jerusalem, places in the forefront of his investigations the conclusion

arrived at in the closing chapter:

‘Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity’ (Eccles. 1:2, see also Eccles.12:8).

In view of the fact that one generation passeth away, and another generation cometh, he asks ‘What profit’ is

there in all the labour done under the sun, and when he returns to this theme in verse 8, he says:

‘All things are full of labour; man cannot utter it: the eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with

hearing’ (Eccles. 1:8).

The closing words of the investigation are:

‘Then shall the dust return to the earth as it was: and the spirit shall return unto God Who gave it. Vanity of

vanities, saith the preacher; all is vanity’ (Eccles. 12:7,8).

Between the opening and closing chapters, Ecclesiastes ponders the problem raised by death. He realized that

wisdom excelled folly as light does darkness, yet he observes:

‘... one event happeneth to them all ... As it happeneth to the fool, so it happeneth even to me; and why was I

then more wise? Then I said in my heart, that this also is vanity ... And how dieth the wise man? as the fool’

(Eccles. 2:13-16).

‘One event’ (Eccles. 2:14; 9:2,3).

‘One place’ (Eccles. 3:20; 6:6).

‘Not satisfied’ (Eccles. 1:8; 4:8; 5:10).

‘Not filled’ (same word as ‘satisfied’) (Eccles. 6:3).

These references sum up the dissatisfaction, the sense of vanity, the never ending circle (Eccles. 1:4-11) that

baffled the wisdom of the wisest.

‘Where is the wise?’ ... ‘The Lord knoweth the thoughts of the wise, that they are vain’ (1 Cor. 1:20; 3:20).

‘But of Him are ye in Christ Jesus, Who of God is made unto us wisdom ... ‘ (1 Cor. 1:30).

‘We speak the wisdom of God in a mystery’ (1 Cor. 2:7).

‘Which things also we speak, not in the words which man’s wisdom teacheth, but which the Holy Ghost

teacheth; comparing spiritual things with spiritual’ (1 Cor. 2:13).

35

The passages cited above are a selection of many such, for indeed the whole revelation of God from Genesis to

Revelation could be summed up under 1 Corinthians 2:13. This being the case, we leave Ecclesiastes to his probing

and searching, and turn to the testimony of others who were inspired in their utterances and whose findings were not

so much the result of searching, but of receiving illumination from above. In all this we by no means impugn the

book of Ecclesiastes; the record of the mistakes of Abraham, of Moses, of Aaron, of Israel and of David are all

‘given by inspiration of God and profitable’. We turn therefore to the positive teaching of Psalm 17:

‘As for me, I will behold Thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with Thy likeness’ (Psa.

17:15).

‘The eye is not satisfied with seeing’. The negative condition.

‘I will behold ... I shall be satisfied’. The positive condition.

Before we look at the terms employed in Psalm 17:15 we should pay attention to the introductory words ‘As for

me’, for they indicate an intended contrast, and we shall not appreciate the fulness of the Psalmist’s hope here, if we

do not know with what he is making comparison. In verse 14 we have a description of those whose hopes are based

upon other grounds than that of the Psalmist.

They are men of this world.

They have their portion in this life.

Their belly is filled.

They are full of children.

They leave their substance to their babes.

It is in contrast with these things that the Psalmist says ‘As for me’. The word translated ‘men’ is somewhat

rare, for whereas the word adam is so translated about 400 times, ish about 900 times and enosh about 450 times, the

word translated ‘men’ in Psalm 17:14 is the Hebrew methim and occurs only fourteen times. It is a cognate of the

word that means ‘loins’ and suggests physical strength. Such ‘are inclosed in their own fat: with their mouth they

speak proudly’ (Psa. 17:10). The Psalmist had prayed:

‘Hold up my goings in Thy paths, that my footsteps slip not’ (Psa. 17:5).

These ‘men’ have their ‘portion’ in this life. A reference to Psalm 73 will provide a fuller commentary upon this

word than we can supply. Let us turn to this Psalm of Asaph and see how he came to his conclusion. The words

‘truly’, ‘verily’ and ‘surely’ are all the same in the original, and could be represented (not translated) by our

colloquial ‘after all’, thus:

After all, God is good to Israel (Psa. 73:1)

But as for me - a record of his misgivings

(Psa. 73:2-12)

After all, I have cleansed my heart in vain (Psa. 73:13)

Until I went into the sanctuary (Psa. 73:17)

After all, Thou didst set them in slippery places (Psa. 73:18)

I was foolish

Whom have I in heaven ?

God is ... my portion for ever (Psa. 73:22-26).

Here also, in this Psalm, the writer says:

‘My steps had well nigh slipped’ (Psa. 73:2).

Here also of these men of this world it is said:

‘Their eyes stand out with fatness: they have more than heart could wish’ (Psa. 73:7),

and yet after the sanctuary experience we read Asaph acknowledging:

‘My flesh and my heart faileth: but God is the strength of my heart, and my portion for ever’ (Psa. 73:26).

SATISFIED 36

These men of Psalm 17 have their portion ‘in this life’. There is possibly a glance back here to the closing words

of Psalm 16, which speaks also of resurrection:

‘Thou wilt show me the path of life: in Thy presence is fulness of joy; at Thy right hand there are pleasures for

evermore’ (Psa. 16:11).

Here the word ‘fulness’ is the same Hebrew word that is translated ‘satisfied’ in Psalm 17, and ‘the path of life’ is

contrasted with ‘this life’. Ecclesiastes glances at this when he says:

‘... that is thy portion in this life ... there is no ... wisdom, in the grave, whither thou goest’ (Eccles. 9:9,10).

Both translators and interpreters alike have found some of the terms used in Psalm 17:14 somewhat difficult to

put into simple English, particularly the statement:

‘... whose belly Thou fillest with Thy hid treasure’.

First, we note that ‘treasure’ is in italics and can be dispensed with. It is but one of many guesses that have been

made. Secondly, the phrase ‘to fill the belly’ is used in other places to indicate a low moral condition. Eliphaz the

Temanite links ‘vain knowledge’ with ‘filling the belly with the east wind’ (Job 15: 2). Zophar the Naamathite says

of the oppressor;

‘When he is about to fill his belly, God shall cast the fury of His wrath upon him’ (Job 20:23).

The reader will probably note that in the preceding verse we read ‘fulness’ and ‘sufficiency’. We remember the

plight of the Prodigal son who fain would have ‘filled his belly with the husks that the swine did eat’ (Luke 15:16),

and the charge made by the apostle that some ‘serve not our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly’ (Rom. 16:18),

and the warning of Philippians 3:19 concerning those ‘whose God is their belly’. Those whose belly is filled with

hid treasure therefore are not in the same class as the Psalmist who said in contrast ‘As for me’. We are still,

however, not yet aware of the intention in the words ‘Thy hid treasure’, but we believe that a reference to

Ecclesiastes may help.

‘He hath set the world in their heart, so that no man can find out the work that God maketh from the beginning to

the end’ (Eccles. 3:11).

Now the Hebrew word that is translated ‘world’ is olam. We quote from Gesenius:

‘What is hidden: specially hidden time, long; the beginning or end of which is either uncertain, or else not

defined’.

Referring to Ecclesiastes 3:11 Gesenius says:

‘From the Chaldee and Rabbinic usage, like the Greek aion, hence the desire or pursuit of worldly things, more

fully called "the love of the world"‘.

What the Psalmist seems to say, when put into English, and perceiving the figurative language employed, could

be paraphrased:

‘Men of the world, which have their portion in this life, and whose belly thou fillest with the world, the age of

undefined limits, so that they see no further than the present, and feel no link with the great purpose of the ages’.

‘They are full of children’ (Psa. 17:14). Here the word translated ‘full’ is the same in the original as the word

translated ‘satisfied’, and is an intentional contrast. What does it mean ‘They are full of children’ and they ‘leave

the rest of their substance to their babes’?

IT MEANS A PROXY RESURRECTION in contrast with the blessed personal hope of the believer.

A reference to Psalm 49 will shed further light on this attitude of the worldly who cannot say with Job:

‘Whom I shall see for myself, and mine eyes shall behold, and not another’ (Job 19:27).

Psalm 49’s message is addressed to:

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‘Both low and high, rich and poor, together’.

His message is largely taken up with the same baffling consciousness that we find in Ecclesiastes 3:18-22, namely

that without hope, man dies like a beast (Psa. 49:10-12). No man can redeem his brother so that he should live for

ever and not see corruption, and instead of trusting in God that quickeneth the dead:

‘Their inward thought is, that their Houses shall continue for ever, and their Dwelling Places to all generations;

they call their Lands after their own names’ (Psa. 49:11).

No hope for a personal resurrection; such take what comfort they can from a PROXY immortality:

‘They call their Lands after their own names’.

They are concerned as to the continuance of their ‘houses’. They even institute divorce proceedings in the hope

that by remarriage they will have an ‘heir’. All because they cannot say:

‘I know that MY Redeemer liveth ... Whom I shall see ... and not another’ (Job 19:25-27).

Returning to Psalm 17, the pitiful substitute for personal resurrection is summed up by the words:

‘... they are full of (SATISFIED with, same word as in verse 15) children, and leave the rest of their substance to

their babes’ (Psa. 17:14).

There is no ‘substance’ for such to leave, the word is in italics and does not exist in the original. They leave

what is left over to their babes - but what is left over? Let us read Psalm 49 again:

‘When he dieth he shall carry nothing away: his glory shall NOT DESCEND after him’

‘This their way is their folly: yet their posterity approve their sayings’ (Psa. 49:17 and 13).

What a relief, what a blessed relief, to turn to the Psalmist’s alternatives, expressed by the words ‘As for me’.

POSITIVE RESURRECTION HOPE

Over against this ‘proxy immortality’ the Psalmist places the blessed hope of the believer:

‘As for me, I will behold Thy face in righteousness: I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with Thy likeness’ (Psa.

17:15).

In verse 2 the Psalmist prayed:

‘Let Thine eyes behold the things that are equal’,

which is echoed in verse 15 ‘I will behold Thy face in righteousness’. The word translated ‘equal’ and also ‘make

straight’ balances the word ‘righteousness’. There, in resurrection glory, the crooked shall be made straight and the

rough places shall be made plain, all inequalities, that worry and perplex the men of this world, and often trip up the

feet of the godly, shall be smoothed out, and both believer and his Lord shall behold ‘things that are equal and

brought into perfect balance’. The beholding of the Lord’s face in righteousness is a step to the goal of the ages:

1. I shall be satisfied

2. When I awake

3. With Thy likeness.

First the believer must be awakened from the sleep of death. Throughout the Word of God, whether in Old

Testament or New, ‘sleeping’ and ‘awakening’ are the figures used consistently for death and resurrection, but as

even some Evangelical Fundamentalists deny this, and substitute for God’s word and God’s words their own creed,

we must spare time and place to exhibit the consistent teaching of all Scripture.

SATISFIED 38

DEATH LIKENED TO SLEEP

RESURRECTION LIKENED TO AWAKENING

‘So man lieth down, and riseth not: till the heavens be no more, they shall not awake, nor be raised out of their

sleep’ (Job 14:12).

‘They shall sleep a perpetual sleep, and not wake’ (Jer. 51:57).

‘Lighten mine eyes, lest I sleep the sleep of death’ (Psa. 13:3).

‘Many of them that sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake’ (Dan. 12:2).

‘And the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints which slept arose’ (Matt. 27:52).

‘Our friend Lazarus sleepeth; but I go, that I may awake him out of sleep ... Then said Jesus unto them plainly,

Lazarus is dead’ (John 11:11,14).

‘For David, after he had served his own generation by the will of God, fell on sleep, and was laid unto his

fathers, and saw corruption’ (Acts 13:36).

‘For this cause many are weak and sickly among you, and many sleep’ (1 Cor. 11:30).

‘They also which are fallen asleep in Christ are perished ... Christ ... the firstfruits of them that slept’ (1 Cor.

15:18,20) .

‘We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed’ (1 Cor. 15:51).

‘Even so them also which sleep in Jesus will God bring with him’ (1 Thess. 4:14).

‘Who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live together with Him’ (1 Thess. 5:10).

The Psalmist apparently had no idea of the intermediate state of blessedness prior to resurrection; he says ‘When

I awake’, (not during the interval) ‘I shall be satisfied’, and satisfied because he will awake in the likeness of his

Lord.

In what does this ‘likeness’ consist? Here in this life we are enjoined to have ‘the MIND’ which was in Christ

Jesus (Phil. 2:5) but to look forward to a glorious transfiguration, when this body of our humiliation shall be

fashioned like unto His glorious BODY (Phil. 3:21). Romans 8 follows this order. First the Spirit of Christ

indwelling the believer now and ‘quickening’ his mortal body, but looking forward to ‘the redemption of the body’;

for God has predestinated every redeemed believer to be ‘conformed to the image of His Son’ (Rom. 8:9-11,23,29).

‘As we have borne the image of the earthy, we shall also bear the image of the heavenly’ (1 Cor. 15:49).

If the immortality of the soul be Scriptural, the Word of God will at least say so. We find that ‘immortality’

whether aphthartos, aphtharsis incorruptible, incorruption (1 Tim. 1:17; Rom. 2:7 and 2 Tim. 1:10) and athanasia,

deathlessness, (1 Cor. 15:53,54; 1 Tim. 6:16), is used either of God or Christ, or of the believer in resurrection, and

in no other way. It is something that men seek, which evidently they do not possess, and the answer to their seeking

is eternal life:

‘To them who by patient continuance in well doing seek for glory and honour and immortality, eternal life’

(Rom. 2:7) .

Immortality will be ‘put on’ at the resurrection and not before (1 Cor. 15:53,54). Christ alone, the King of kings

and the Lord of lords, He ‘only hath immortality’ (1 Tim. 6:14-16). 2 Corinthians 5 speaks of the present body as ‘a

tent’ which will be ‘dissolved’. The apostle does not wish for an ‘unclothed’ state but that he might be ‘clothed

upon ... that mortality might be swallowed up of life’ (2 Cor. 5:1-4). What this figure means, we learn by its earlier

use in 1 Corinthians 15:54 :

‘When this corruptible shall have put on incorruption, and this mortal shall have put on immortality, then shall be

brought to pass the saying that is written, Death is swallowed up in victory’.

The believer’s satisfaction awaits the realization of ‘that blessed hope’ when:

‘We shall be like Him; for we shall see Him as He is’ (1 John 3:2).

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There is, however, an even more wonderful thought, the Saviour Who suffered the death of the Cross with all the

accompanying shame, He too will be ‘satisfied’! If this be so, we might well say ‘That will be glory for me’.

We turn to that wonderful chapter of Isaiah which contains this truth, namely Isaiah 53. While we find the

chapter and verse division of the Scriptures most useful when using concordance and lexicon, we must remember

that chapter divisions are artificial, and sometimes misleading. So important is this of Isaiah, we believe the reader

would wish us to spare no pains in exhibiting its structure and teaching, and so before we focus our wondering

attention on the words of Isaiah 53:11, ‘He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied’, we consider the

section of Isaiah that contains these words.

THE LAMB OF GOD (Isa. 52:13 to 56:8)

THE STRUCTURE OF ISAIAH 52:13 to 53:12 DISCOVERED

Isaiah 40 opens with the words ‘Comfort ye’ and the section before us provides the only solid basis for true

comfort. To Israel, and indeed to us all, are addressed the words:

‘O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted ... ‘ (Isa. 54:11);

and where shall the ‘afflicted’ look for comfort, but away to Him Who was ‘afflicted’ as their substitute? (Isa. 53:7).

This portion of Scripture includes Isaiah 53, the ‘holy of holies’ of all the prophets. Whenever we open the sacred

page we are on holy ground; whenever we read the Law and the Prophets we read the Scriptures that speak of

Christ, but there are some passages that stand out prominently in this blessed particular, and the chapter before us

was written in the foreknowledge of Calvary, of its suffering and of its triumph.

The section we are to study is 52:13 to 56:8 and it divides into four parts.

A 52:13 to 53:12. He bare the sin of many. His soul an offering.

B 54. Restoration. Seed inherit Gentiles.

No weapon shall prosper.

A 55:1-7. He will abundantly pardon. Your soul - fatness.

B 55:8 to 56:8. Gathering ‘others’ ‘all people’.

Word shall prosper.

The subject is so vast and our means so small that we will concentrate all our attention for the time being on the

first section 52:13 to 53:12.

Before studying any passage in detail we seek the literary structure, for by so doing we discover the scope and

the argument of the passage, and without either structure, scope or argument, our comments must degenerate to a

mere list of unconnected notes on individual words. The desire to present to the reader the structure of this great

passage, and our ability to satisfy that desire are, however, two widely differing propositions. We do not propose

asking the reader to share with us in this arduous task, neither can we expect any who have not pursued this path to

be able to enter into the joy of its discovery. We give a few indications as to how the structure grew, and leave it

with the earnest reader to test, to use and to enjoy as grace may be given. In the first place we noted the passage

opens with the words, ‘Behold My Servant’ (Isa. 52:13) and we remembered that after the record is given of His

substitutionary sufferings, this blessed Servant is again brought before us.

‘By His knowledge shall My righteous Servant justify many; for He shall bear their iniquities’ (Isa. 53:11).

A moment’s meditation brought another feature to light. The Hebrew word translated ‘to bear’ is nasa and

means primarily ‘to lift up’. The word ‘extolled’ is also a translation of nasa. Concerning these and other Hebrew

words we do not offer any explanation, we are but noting the beginnings of the structural arrangement of material,

and record our first note.

‘My Servant’. ‘Extolled’. nasa.

‘My Righteous Servant’. ‘Bear’. nasa.

SATISFIED 40

We now observe that nations and kings are referred to in 52:15, and we read of them being astonished at

something totally unexpected. We find something equally unexpected after the sorrow, the humiliation and the

meekness in Isaiah 53:4-10: the division of the spoil with the great and the strong, Isaiah 53:12. These features

however we kept in reserve, while examining the remaining verses. We knew that the words ‘The LORD hath laid

on Him the iniquity of us all’ (53:6), and ‘He made intercession for the transgressors’ (Isa. 53:12) employed the

same Hebrew word paga, and this is noted in the first volume of The Berean Expositor in an article entitled

‘Wondrous meeting places’, where these passages are re-translated:

‘The Lord hath made to meet on Him the iniquity of us all’ and

‘He bare the sin of many, and made a meeting place for transgressors’.

We have now two focal pairs of correspondences.

A Servant - extolled nasa.

B Meeting place - paga.

A Servant - bear nasa.

B Meeting place - paga.

We observed that both the sinner and the Saviour are likened to ‘sheep’ which, together with the most evident

emphasis upon His sufferings for the people, filled the remainder of the space with the wonder of His

‘substitutionary sufferings’. Returning to 52:14,15 and 53:1-3 we discovered that the word ‘visage’ and the word

‘beauty’ were translations of the same Hebrew word, as also are the two words ‘heard’ (52:15) and ‘report’ (53:1).

We therefore set before the reader and commend to his prayerful study and service the following structure of this

glorious passage.

As may have been expected, a number of quotations are made in the New Testament from Isaiah 52 and 53, and

we will conclude this opening survey of the material before us by indicating the passages quoted.

Isaiah 52:15. ‘For that which had not been told them shall they see; and that which they had not heard shall they

consider’.

This verse is quoted in Romans 15:21, in connexion with the desire of the apostle to ‘preach the gospel, not where

Christ was named, lest I should build upon another man’s foundation’ (Rom. 15:20).

Isaiah 53:1. ‘Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed?’

This passage is quoted by John, in his Gospel, 12:38; and the first sentence is quoted by Paul in Romans 10:16.

John 12 is the chapter which closes the witness of Christ in the world as man, and reveals His rejection.

Isaiah 53:4. ‘Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows’.

This passage is quoted in Matthew 8:17 where it reads:

‘Himself took our infirmities, and bare our sicknesses’.

Isaiah 53:5. ‘And with His stripes we are healed’.

This is quoted in 1 Peter 2:24. ‘By Whose stripes ye were healed’. It is useful to note that Peter, by reason of the

fact that he was writing an epistle changes the ‘we’ of Isaiah 53 to ‘ye’ in order to apply the passage to his

immediate hearers.

Isaiah 53-7,8. This rather lengthy passage is quoted in Acts 8:32,33. A number of most important questions are

raised upon comparing the Old Testament original with the New Testament quotations, which will be considered in

their place. The one and most important contribution which we would emphasize here is the sequel:

‘Then Philip opened his mouth, and began at the same Scripture, and preached unto him Jesus’ (Acts 8:35).

Isaiah 53:9. ‘Because He had done no violence, neither was any deceit in His mouth’.

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The Hebrew word translated ‘violence’ is translated hamartian by the LXX., and this is adopted by Peter (1 Pet.

2:22). He also adds the verb ‘was found’ which makes no material difference.

Isaiah 53:12. ‘And He was numbered with the transgressors’.

This is quoted in Mark 15:28 and Luke 22:37. These seven passages are quoted by different writers of the New

Testament and reveal the importance that this chapter holds in their estimate, for although at first sight seven

quotations do not seem many - yet no other chapter in Isaiah nor in the Old Testament is quoted so many times.

We are now ready to give this majestic chapter something of the attention that is its due. May we never forget

that its greatest glory is to lead our hearts upward from the contemplation of the letter, to Him ‘The Word made

flesh’, ‘The Son of God Who loved me and gave Himself for me’.

‘WHEREFORE GOD HATH HIGHLY EXALTED HIM’

(Isa. 52:13)

‘Behold, My Servant shall deal prudently, He shall be exalted and extolled, and be very high’.

With these words, the great sacrificial chapter of Isaiah opens. Not with sorrow or grief, not with humiliation,

not with references to death and the grave, but with exaltation, with being extolled, and with being very high. In

earlier chapters we have read of this Servant of the Lord (Isa. 42:1,19; 43:10; 49:3,5,6), and the prophecies have

gathered strength and clarity as this climax drew near. Our attention is drawn first to what this Servant of the Lord

does, ‘He shall deal prudently’, and then what shall be done to Him ‘He shall be exalted’. The word translated ‘deal

prudently’ is given in the A.V. margin an alternative meaning ‘prosper’. This, however, must not be understood in

the same sense as the world ‘prosper’ in Isaiah 53:10 where a different Hebrew word is employed. Sakal, is

rendered in most of its occurrences by the words ‘wise’ or ‘understanding’ but in the hiphel or causative, it is

translated eight times ‘prosper’. Jeremiah uses this word in a prophetic utterance that looks to the same glorious day

of the Messiah as does Isaiah 52:13 :

‘Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will raise unto David a righteous Branch, and a King shall reign

and prosper,

and shall execute judgment and justice in the earth. In His days Judah shall be saved, and Israel shall dwell

safely: and this is

His name whereby He shall be called, THE LORD OUR RIGHTEOUSNESS’ (Jer. 23:5,6).

It is moreover written of both Joshua and Hoshea (names that foreshadowed the ‘Saviour’ ‘Jesus’) that they

‘prospered’ (Josh. 1:7; 2 Kings 18:7). He Who is the Wisdom of God is also the Power of God (1 Cor. 1:24); His

Wisdom is dynamic, it ‘prospers’ and prevails.

So Isaiah 52:13 opens ‘My Servant shall prosper’, and the seal was set upon His glorious ‘success’ (as this word

is translated in Josh. 1:8) by His resurrection and ascension.

‘He shall be exalted, and extolled, and be very high’.

The Prophet has no intention here of making three different phases in this exaltation, it is the overflowing joy of

the prophetic vision, using a well known figure of speech anabasis or ‘gradual ascent’ whereby an increase of

emphasis is made by a rising series of successive words, phrases or sentences. We must nevertheless acquaint

ourselves with all three words, in order that the Divine intention in their use may be perceived.

‘Exalted’, Hebrew rum.- It will be remembered that Abraham before his name was changed (Gen. 17:5), was Abram

made up of ab ‘father’ and rum or ram ‘high’, and ‘exalted’. So also the place names, ramah and ramoth ‘A lofty

place’ (1 Sam. 19:18; Deut. 4:43). Some of its usages in Isaiah alone will indicate sufficiently its distinctive

meaning. Exalted as a ‘highway’ (Isa. 49:11); as one of the cedars of Lebanon (Isa. 2:13); as the Lord sitting upon a

throne ‘high’ and lifted up (Isa. 6:1), or as ‘The High’ and lofty One that inhabiteth Eternity (Isa. 57:15). Something

of what is involved in the exaltation of Jehovah’s Servant may be gathered from the expansion of the term in the

blasphemous words of Lucifer, Son of the Morning.

SATISFIED 42

‘... I will ascend into heaven, I will exalt my throne above the stars of God ... I will ascend above the heights of

the clouds; I will be like the most High’ (Isa. 14:13,14).

The LXX translates this by the Greek verb hupsoo which is fourteen times rendered ‘exalted’ and six times ‘lift up’

in the New Testament:

‘Being by the right hand of God exalted’ (Acts 2:33).

‘The God of our fathers raised up Jesus, Whom ye slew and hanged on a tree. Him hath God exalted with His

right hand to be a Prince and a Saviour, for to give repentance to Israel, and forgiveness of sins’ (Acts 5:30-31).

‘Extolled’, Hebrew nasa.- This is the most extensive root, signifying ‘To bear, take or lift up’. It is found in Isaiah

in combination with the previous word rum, several times:

Cedars of Lebanon, ‘High and lifted up’ rum and nasa (Isa. 2:13).

I saw also the Lord ‘High’ and ‘lifted up’ (Isa. 6:1).

Thus saith the ‘High’ and ‘lofty One’ (Isa. 57:15).

Another suggestive passage in Isaiah is ‘every valley shall be exalted’. These are passages in which the verb

nasa is used in its reflexive form. In the simple active form, this word is used in Isaiah 53:4 and 12 ‘He hath borne

our griefs’, ‘He bare the sin of many’, where instead of Himself being lifted up or ‘extolled’ He is seen ‘lifting up’

the burden of our sins. The LXX here uses the word doxazo ‘to glorify’. Those readers who are acquainted with the

Gospel of John, and especially John 13 to 17 will realize how fully the Saviour entered into these prophetic

utterances concerning Himself:

‘Now is the Son of Man glorified, and God is glorified in Him’ (John 13:31).

‘Glorify Thy Son, that Thy Son also may glorify Thee’ (John 17:1).

It will be seen how fully also Peter entered into these prophetic words. In Acts 2:33 and 5:31, he used, as we have

seen the word ‘exalted’, but in Acts 3:13 in a similar context he uses this word ‘glorify’:

‘The God of our fathers, hath glorified His Son Jesus; Whom ye delivered up, and denied Him in the presence of

Pilate, when he was determined to let Him go’.

‘And be very high’. Here the words used in the original are the verb gabah and the adverb meod. Just as we

found Lucifer using the word ‘exalted’ so we find written of the Prince of Tyre:

‘Thine heart is lifted up ... thou hast set thine heart as the heart of God’ (Ezek. 28:5,6),

and further to reveal the parallel intended between the Usurper and the Rightful Lord, we find the word ‘astonied’ or

‘astonished’ used of each (Isa. 52:14; Ezek. 28:19). Gabah is used of the ‘heart’ (2 Chron. 26:16); ‘the heavens’

(Isa. 55:9); ‘the LORD of hosts’ (Isa. 5:16) and of Saul who was higher than any of the people (1 Sam. 10:23).

‘Behold, My Servant ... He shall be exalted and extolled, and be very high’ (Isa. 52:13).

The LXX recognizes that these are not to be considered as three separate statements, positions or degrees, but an

intensive way of speaking of His exceeding exaltation, it reads:

‘He shall be exalted and glorified exceedingly’.

We must not look upon the exaltation of the Servant of the Lord here, as though it were the effect of the

prospering of the first part of the verse. Rather is the second clause to be read as an expansion, a parallel, with the

first. In this verse the suffering and humiliation are passed, the glory fills the vision. Here, in Isaiah 52:13 to 53:12

we have exaltation, followed by a review of past humiliation, succeeded once again by exaltation, this time

manifested by dividing the spoil.

We turn to the New Testament and discover another passage which sets before us the blessed sequel to His

condescension. It will enable us to appreciate the antichristian blasphemy of Lucifer or the Cherub that fell; it will

enable us to understand that the words ‘The high and lofty One’ Who inhabiteth Eternity, were perfectly fitting to

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Him Who was on earth known as the Man of Sorrows, for He was more than mere man, He was the God-Man.

‘Behold My Servant’ said the Lord, not only in Isaiah 52, but in Philippians 2:

‘Who, being in the form of God, thought it not robbery to be equal with God: but made Himself of no reputation

... the form of a servant ... He humbled Himself (see Isa. 53:8 LXX, "In His humiliation His judgment was taken

away") ... unto death, even the death of the cross. Wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him (huperupsoo)

and given Him a (the) name which is above every name: that at (in) the name of Jesus every knee should bow’

(Phil. 2:6-10).

Stress is laid in the New Testament on the exceedingly exalted position now occupied by the Ascended Lord.

‘He ascended up far above all heavens’ (Eph. 4:10) so far above that He might ‘fill all things’. He has ‘passed

into (through)’ (dierchomai) the heavens (Heb. 4:14); He is ‘made higher than the heavens’ (hupsiloteros) ‘more

exalted’ (Heb. 7:26).

Thus does prophet and apostle delight to honour Him, Who for our sakes stooped so low. It is good that at the

opening of this chapter of unprecedented suffering we should be taken as it were with Peter, James and John to the

Mount of Transfiguration, and there with Moses and Elijah become ‘eye-witnesses’ of His majesty, before we

descend with Him into the vale of tears that led to Calvary’s Cross.

THE ASTONISHMENT AND BLINDNESS OF ISRAEL

In order that we may clearly perceive the argument of Isaiah 52:14,15 we must recognize in the ‘As’ ... ‘So’ of

these two verses the figure of speech called the Simile, and not allow the intervening sentences to prevent the mind

from grasping its import.

‘As many were astonied at Thee; (His visage was so marred more than any man, and His form more than the

sons of men): so shall He startle many nations; the kings shall shut their mouths at Him: (For that which had not

been told them shall they see; and that which they had not heard shall they consider)’.

The alteration of the word ‘sprinkle’ to ‘startle’ will be found in the marginal reading of the Revised Version.

Consideration of this revision will not only enable us to understand the teaching of Isaiah 52, but also illustrate the

danger that besets anyone who attempts to translate the original Scriptures, depending only or mainly on the

evidence of the Concordance. We must never forget that the Concordance, if it gives the English rendering, is

merely recording a fact, but whether that fact be at the same time a true translation, the Concordance cannot say. If

the reader is in the habit of using a Hebrew English Lexicon Concordance, he will find that the word translated

‘sprinkle’ is used twenty-four times in the Old Testament and is translated in every case ‘sprinkle’; there is no other

passage where such a rendering as ‘startle’ is possible, for in every case, except that of Isaiah 52:15, it is either

blood, oil or water that is sprinkled. In that very exception however lies the answer to the difficulty. Supposing we

said that blood, oil, water or nations are sprinkled, we should at once realize that the blood oil or water are said to be

sprinkled on persons or things, and that something not stated is said to be sprinkled on the nations.

The Hebrew word nazah means primarily ‘to leap’ and is allied with the similar Arabic word which is employed

in such proverbs as ‘a greater leaper than the locust’, or ‘more springy than the springbok’. When a fluid is in mind,

then ‘sprinkle’ or ‘spurt’ is appropriate.

‘The fluid spurted is put in the accusative, and it is spurted upon the person. In the present passage, the persons

"many nations", is in the accusative, and it is simply treason against the Hebrew language to render "sprinkle".

The interpreter who will so translate will ‘do anything’ (A. B. Davidson).

Moreover the LXX translates this passage, ‘Thus shall many nations wonder at Him’, clearly showing that they

understood the word as the R.V. gives it. This translation is endorsed by The Companion Bible.

We can now see more clearly the teaching of Isaiah 52:14,15 which we will set out, using the added knowledge

we have gained.

As.The many ‘astonished’.

Reason. The marred visage.

SATISFIED 44

So. Many nations ‘caused to wonder’.

Reason. Unheard of things.

Having corrected our translation and assembled our passage under its respective headings we can now proceed.

‘Astonished’, Hebrew shamem.- This word is translated ‘astonish’ when applied to the mind, or ‘desolate’ when

applied to land or city, and then, by a figure quite common among us, the word ‘desolate’ is applied to the state of

mind also. We have an example of this double use in Leviticus:

‘And I will bring the land into desolation: and your enemies which dwell therein shall be astonished’ (Lev.

26:32).

The reader will keep in mind the parallel word ‘startle’ or ‘wonder’ of verse 15. The book of Job confirms this:

‘Mark me, and be astonished, and lay your hand upon your mouth’ (Job 21:5).

So Isaiah 52:15 may read ‘wonder’ and the sequel, ‘Kings shall shut their mouths at Him’, continues the thought.

Three passages in Ezekiel will increase our understanding of the nature and character of the ‘astonishment’ of

Isaiah 52:14. Two of these passages relate to the fall of Tyre, and the third to the mystical king of Tyre, probably

Satan himself:

‘Then all the princes of the sea shall come down from their thrones, and lay away their robes, and put off their

broidered garments: they shall clothe themselves with trembling; they shall sit upon the ground, and shall

tremble at every moment, and be astonished at thee’ (Ezek. 26:16).

Here is a picture of desolation of mind. Thrones vacated; royal insignia laid aside; trembling at every moment:

this is ‘astonishment’ in the Biblical sense. Ezekiel 27:35 and 28:19 should be read in conjunction with the above

verse. The degree of desolation intended can be gathered from the fact that this same word is used to describe ‘the

abomination that maketh desolate’ (Dan. 9:26,27; 11:31; 12:11), and the effect upon Daniel, ‘I was astonished at the

vision’ (Dan. 8:27). When therefore we read, ‘As many were astonished at thee’ let us not pass by the word, as of

little importance. In Isaiah 52:14 and in one or two other places the Authorized Version uses the older spelling of

the word, ‘astonied’ which is derived from the old French word estoner, and allied with the word ‘stun’, and

sometimes derived from stony and used as petrify. For our present purpose the modern spelling is preferable. The

astonishment here referred to, in Isaiah 52:14, was produced by the humiliation and suffering to which this august

Servant of Jehovah stooped.

‘His visage was so marred more than any man, and His form more than the sons of men’.

The structure (page 75) has already informed us that in the original ‘visage’ and ‘beauty’ are the same word.

We have already referred to Daniel 8:27 in connexion with the word ‘astonish’: we now refer to it again, as it

uses the Hebrew word mareh, ‘visage’ or ‘beauty’. ‘I was astonished at the vision’ (Dan. 8:27). Roah, ‘to see’,

from which this word is derived, is found in Isaiah 52:15:

‘That which had not been told them shall they see’.

What Israel failed to see, Isaiah himself saw,

‘Mine eyes have seen the King’ (Isa. 6:5).

and we are assured by John that Isaiah saw the glory of Christ, and spoke of Him (John 12:41), and it is in this very

connexion that Isaiah 6:10 is quoted:

‘He hath blinded their eyes, and hardened their heart; that they should not see with their eyes, nor understand

with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them’ (John 12:40).

This ‘visage’ which Israel failed ‘to see’ was ‘more marred than any man’. In the opening chapter Israel were

charged by Isaiah with being ‘corrupters’ (Isa. 1:4) and the context makes one almost suspect the condition known

as leprosy. This word, translated ‘corrupt’, is the word that gives us ‘marred’ in Isaiah 52:14. Leprosy most

certainly is in view in Isaiah 6. There we find king Uzziah who had been stricken with leprosy and Isaiah

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confessing that he dwelt among a people of unclean lips. Among other practices that made Israel resemble their

idolatrous neighbours, rendering them unfit for the service of the Lord, is the prohibition, in Leviticus 19:27,

‘neither shalt thou mar the corners of thy beard’; for of all the heathen at that time it could be written ‘their

corruption (same word as "marred") is in them, and blemishes be in them: they shall not be accepted for you’ (Lev.

22:25). The reader will observe that the context deals with the need for a spotless offering in the sacrifices of Israel.

Here, in Isaiah 53, is ‘the Lamb of God’, Who had laid aside His glory, and was made a sin-offering on our behalf,

stooping down to this likeness of ‘corruption’ and being charged with the very thing He had come to remove. Israel

were ‘astonished’ at the depths to which He descended, but they did not know it was for their sakes. In Isaiah 53,

that light breaks in - but we have not reached that section yet. They treated Him as a moral leper, ‘we hid as it were

our faces from Him’; they could not ‘see’ anything in Him to desire Him. Again Ezekiel 28 must be quoted. The

Saviour’s visage was ‘marred’, not through pride, but in love that passeth knowledge; but of the fallen cherub it is

written, ‘Thine heart was lifted up (gabah, "high", Isa. 52:13) because of thy beauty, thou hast corrupted (same word

as "marred") thy wisdom by reason of thy brightness’ (Ezek. 28:17).

‘Form’, Hebrew toar, is once translated ‘visage’ (Lam. 4:8), and is used, in the way common to Hebrew poetry,

as a repetition for emphasis. Perhaps there is a glance at the description given of David:

‘Behold, I have seen a son of Jesse the Beth-lehemite, that is cunning in playing, and a mighty valiant man, and a

man of war, and prudent in matters, and a comely person’ (1 Sam. 16:18).

It will be remembered that David was described as being ‘ruddy and of a fair countenance’ (where the word

‘countenance’ is mareh, ‘visage’, of Isa. 52:14), although Samuel was warned about looking on the ‘countenance’ of

Eliab, for that was to judge merely by outward appearance and not by the heart (1 Sam. 16:7). The word translated

‘visage’ occurs in but one other place in Isaiah, and that is in chapter 11:3, ‘He shall not judge after the sight of His

eyes’. Applying, then, all that we have seen, both of the structure of these verses and the meaning and usage of the

words which they contain, we believe that we can perceive that the astonishment and wonder of these many people

and kings at the depth of the Saviour’s humiliation, arises out of the following facts:

(1) They who judged after the sight of their own eyes saw nothing but the outward appearance, and just as Israel

were unanimous in the choice of Saul as their king, by reason of his ‘countenance’, even though they were

self-deceived, so they were unanimous in their rejection of their true King because of this selfsame

superficial judgment.

(2) The reason why Israel made so tragic a mistake was because of their moral condition. They themselves, as

Isaiah 1 and 6 indicate, were moral lepers, and when they looked upon the Lord, they saw but their own

reflection, the sin and stripe that He bore, but they saw not the patient, lowly sin-bearer Himself.

(3) The many references that we have made to antichristian persons, (the king of Babylon, the king of Tyre, and

Lucifer, son of the morning), place the Christ of God, in direct contrast with the false christ, the man of sin,

the fallen cherub and the whole satanic travesty of truth. These exalt themselves; these corrupt themselves.

He, though originally in the ‘form’ of God, took upon Him the ‘form’ of a servant, and in that form, which

had no comeliness, He was despised and rejected, yet ‘this same Jesus’ shall be ‘admired’ (thaumazo, ‘be

wondered at’, the LXX equivalent of ‘startle’ in Isa. 52:15) in that day.

‘WHO HATH BELIEVED OUR REPORT?’

We now approach the opening verses of Isaiah 53 itself, but the structure of the passage as a whole has shown us

that these are so interwoven with the closing words of the previous chapter that they cannot be considered

separately. We must therefore carry forward with us all that we have learned concerning the ‘astonishment’ of those

who failed to see beyond the marred visage of the suffering Saviour, and realise that our present study is a

continuance of the same theme.

To refresh our memory, the following outlines are repeated from previous studies:

SATISFIED 46

Isaiah 52:14,15 to 53:3.

B Nations and Kings c Visage (mareh).

d Form (toar).

e Heard (shamea).

e Report (Shemuah).

d Form (toar).

c Beauty (mareh).

Isaiah 52:14,15.

AS many were astonished at Thee;

(His visage so marred more than any man).

SO shall He startle many nations;

(That which not told them they shall see).

‘Who hath believed our report?’ (Isa. 53:1).

Who is the speaker of these words? Jenour in his analysis places the first verse under the heading of the

‘Watchmen’, by which he intends ‘the apostles and first preachers of the gospel’.

The Companion Bible says: ‘The questions are asked by the prophet’. Geo. Adam Smith translates Isaiah 53:1,

‘Who gave believing to that which we heard?’ and gives the note:

‘And not our report, or something we caused to be heard, as in the English Version. Shemuah is the passive

participle of shema, to hear, and not hashemia, to cause to hear. The speakers are now the penitent people of God

who had been preached to, and not the prophets who had preached’.

In Isaiah 53 we have a foreshadowing of Israel’s repentance and grief when they look upon Him Whom they had

pierced and, at last, recognise that ‘He was wounded for their transgressions’.

The Authorized Version margin shows that the translators were not quite satisfied with the words ‘our report’

and reads ‘Or doctrine?’ ‘Heb. hearing?’ This word translated ‘doctrine’ is in the text itself in Isaiah 28:9, and once

again occurs as an alternative in the margin of Isaiah 28:19.

‘Who hath believed’.- As cited above, Geo. Adam Smith gives the strange rendering, ‘Who gave believing’, but

there is a reason behind it. In his Literal Version Robert Young reads: ‘Who hath given credence to that which we

heard?’ The reason for this circumlocution is that the translators knew that the Hebrew word for ‘believe’ is the

origin of our word ‘amen’, as though faith says ‘Amen’ to all that God reveals. This word aman is of great

importance, not only by reason of its use here in Isaiah 53, but because of its influence on our approach to the

question ‘What is faith, or believing?’

Primarily, aman means ‘To prop, to stay, to sustain, to support’; intransitively the word means ‘To be stayed up’,

hence ‘To be firm, unshaken; such as one may safely lean on’, and, then, metaphorically, ‘To be faithful’ (see

Gesenius).

‘Who accepted the words that we heard as being the truth, upon the veracity of which we could lean in utter

confidence, sure of the faithfulness of Him Who uttered them?’

While this is impossible as a translation, it may awaken in the English mind that which would have been quickly

conveyed to the mind of the Hebrew. The appropriateness of the title ‘Amen’ as given to Christ in Revelation 3:14,

and the New Testament expansion of the title that follows, ‘the faithful and true Witness’ may now be the better

appreciated, as also the introduction of the ‘Yea’ and ‘Amen’ in 2 Corinthians 1:20, in regard to all the promises of

God.

What Israel heard of their Messiah was simply incredible, because tradition, blindness, ignorance and sin had

robbed them of their right to have simple confidence in the faithfulness of God Who spoke of them. Instead of

believing what they were told, they brought the doctrine of God to the bar of their own reasoning, and, judging by

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the sight of their own eyes, the Lord and His Word were despised and rejected. But what they once heard not, they

are yet to ‘consider’. Of this people Isaiah had said, ‘My people doth not consider’ (Isa. 1:3), or, as the word is

translated in Isaiah 6:10, they did not ‘understand with their heart’ and so were not healed.

Not only did Israel not believe that which they heard, but the prophecy continues:

‘And to whom is the arm of the LORD revealed?’ (Isa. 53:1).

Evidently the message which these people had heard, and which they did not believe, was concerning ‘the arm of the

Lord’. No Israelite could forget the words of Exodus 6:6, ‘I will redeem you with a stretched out arm’, nor would

the hearers of this prophecy forget that in the tenth verse of Isaiah 52, the prophet had said:

‘The LORD hath made bare His holy arm in the eyes of all the nations; and all the ends of the earth shall see the

salvation of our God’ (Isa. 52:10).

Yet ‘the nations had been startled’ when, at long last, they had realised the import of the words.

The word ‘revealed’ is usually associated with a doctrine or a truth, and not so frequently with a person. Of

course, ‘to reveal’ the ‘arm’ of the Lord, might mean to reveal the truth, the promise of the deliverance

accomplished by ‘the arm of the Lord’, but as the word translated ‘reveal’ primarily means ‘to be naked’ and ‘to

make naked’, the meaning of the phrase ‘The arm of the Lord revealed’ may mean ‘The arm of the Lord uncovered’,

as the word is translated in Isaiah 47:2,3. This would bring the passage into line with the one already quoted, which

speaks of ‘making bare’ the arm, and so ready for battle, service or redemption. The fact that the Greek translators

use the verb apokalupto might lead one who was acquainted with the New Testament only, to reject this suggestion,

but the very first occurrence of apokalupto in the LXX is in Genesis 8:13, where it would be impossible to translate

‘And Noah revealed the covering of the Ark’, the obvious meaning being that Noah ‘removed the covering’ or

‘uncovered’ the ark. So it is with the second reference, Exodus 20:26, but perhaps the most decisive passage of all

is Isaiah 52:10 where it is used to translate the words ‘The LORD hath made bare His holy arm’.

The meaning of Isaiah 53:1 therefore, is:

‘Who hath credited the words we heard as truth? and to which of the nations, before whose eyes the LORD had

made bare His holy arm, has that arm really been uncovered?’

In other words, when the Saviour entered into His great ministry, how many recognised that in Him the word of the

Lord was being fulfilled, or that the great work of redemption was being accomplished?

‘For He shall grow up before Him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground: He hath no form nor

comeliness; and when we shall see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him’ (Isa. 53:2).

We shall preserve the unity of the prophecy if we follow the Revised Version and use the past tense from verse 2

to verse 10, where the change is made to the future, when it says, ‘He shall see His seed’, etc. ‘The tender plant’

means a ‘suckling’ and the word is used of infants in Psalm 8:2 and in Isaiah 11:8, ‘The sucking child shall play on

the hole of the asp’, even as the verb means to suckle a babe. There is something very tender and appealing in the

thought of a suckling, and this is how the Saviour ‘grew up before the face’ of the Father, for the words ‘before

Him’ are literally ‘before His face’. The Father knew those early years at Nazareth, and all the sinless purity of that

obscure life, so that heaven itself opened at His baptism and the good pleasure which the Father had in Him was

made known - but in the eyes of others, instead of a ‘tender plant’, He was but ‘a root out of a dry ground’.

To be set in a dry land, and slain with thirst, is to suffer judgment (Hos. 2:3), but to be visited with dew from

heaven is to be restored and to have beauty as the olive tree (Hos. 14:5,6). When the Psalmist was cut off from the

worship of God he said that he longed for God ‘as the hart panteth after the water brooks’ (Psa. 42:1), and that he

thirsted for God ‘in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is’ (Psa. 63:1).

For a nation to be compared to ‘a wilderness’, ‘a dry land’, and ‘a desert’ (Jer. 50:12) was to declare that nation

cast off from God and devoted to judgment. For the people of Israel to have compared the Servant of Jehovah to a

‘root out of a dry ground’ reveals the extent of their blindness and the completeness of their rejection of Him.

SATISFIED 48

‘He hath no form nor comeliness’.- ‘Form’ has already appeared in Isaiah 52:14; there it was ‘more marred’ than the

sons of men, here it is described as being devoid of ‘comeliness’. This is too homely a translation; ‘excellency’ (Isa.

35:2), ‘majesty’ (Psa. 45:3), ‘honour’ (Psa. 145:5), ‘glory’ (Isa. 2:10), or ‘beauty’ (Psa. 110:3) would be a more

fitting translation. At His second coming the verb is used of His appearance,

‘Who is ... this that is glorious in His apparel’ (Isa. 63:1).

yet, at His first advent, His people saw neither honour, glory, majesty, nor beauty.

‘No beauty that we should desire Him’.- We have already considered under ‘visage’ (Isa. 52:14), the meaning and

usage of the word here translated ‘beauty’.

The Messiah is given the title ‘The desire of all nations’ (Hag. 2:7), but this again is at His second coming (see

context).

Contrariwise, upon Saul - the people’s choice, the persecutor of David and the rejected of the Lord - this title

was laid ‘On whom is all the desire of Israel?’ (1 Sam. 9:20).

‘He is despised (see also Psa. 22:6) and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted (the "knowledge" of

Isa. 53:11) with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from Him’ (A.V.). ‘He hid as it were His face from us’

(A.V. and R.V. margins). ‘As an hiding of faces from Him’ or ‘from us’ (A.V. margin). ‘As one from whom

men hide their face’ (R.V.).

It will be seen that owing to the ambiguity of the sentence the translators have experienced some difficulty in

interpreting this last clause. G. A. Smith gives:

‘And as one we do cover the face from’,

while the LXX reads,

‘For His face is turned from us’.

The reader will remember the allusions to leprosy in earlier comments. We believe that the same dread thing is

in view here. The Saviour was regarded as ‘unclean’. He Who was the brightness of the Father’s glory, so

identified Himself with His people’s sin and shame, that there was ‘an hiding of faces’, and He Who ever was ‘holy,

harmless, undefiled and separate from sinners’ was separated by them from their company and treated as a leper.

The following is a confirmation of this interpretation from a note taken from the Talmud where it asks, ‘What is

the name of the Messias? One answer is that ‘Some say hatsara, "The Leprous", according as it is written, "Surely

He hath borne our sicknesses"‘.

‘CHRIST ... SUFFERED ... THE JUST FOR THE UNJUST’

We now approach the revealed results of this tremendous burden of suffering and transgressions, and read,

‘The chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with His stripes we are healed’ (Isa. 53:5).

First let us consider the teaching contained in the words: ‘The chastisement of our peace was upon Him’. This

cannot mean that ‘our peace’ was ‘chastised’, but that the chastisement was ‘upon Him’. The reader is doubtless

aware that the word ‘of’, which is the sign of the genitive case, is not necessarily limited to the ‘possessive’,

although this is the first and most frequent meaning. The phrase ‘smitten of God’ can mean nothing else than

‘smitten by God’, which is an example of the genitive of efficient cause. So also is the phrase ‘chastisement of our

peace’, which means not only the chastisement that procures our peace, but, as the context reveals, a chastisement

endured by the Lord on behalf of His people.

So in the passages before us we observe two parallel lines of suffering:

Acquainted with and bearing

grief.

Wounded for

transgressions.

Carrying sorrows. Bruised for iniquities.

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Chastisement to procure peace. Stripes to procure healing.

There is a difference between being ‘acquainted with’ grief and being ‘wounded for’ transgressions, even as

there is a difference between being burdened with our sorrows, and being bruised for our iniquities. This is brought

out by the presence or absence of the word ‘for’, which is employed in the phrases ‘wounded for’ or ‘bruised for’,

but not in those passages which speak of being acquainted with or carrying grief or sorrow. The chastisement of our

peace belongs to that class of sufferings that stress the mental aspect; the stripes that procure healing belong to the

bodily sufferings the same Saviour endured ‘for’ His people.

We must not lose sight of the fact that Isaiah 53 is the great confession of repentant Israel, and so at last, they

acknowledge their transgressions, saying:

‘All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and the LORD hath laid on Him

the iniquity of us all’ (Isa. 53:6).

A TWOFOLD MEETING PLACE.

A Suffering Servant. He shall be extolled,

Heb. nasa, ‘To be lifted up’.

B A meeting place for sins. Heb. paga.

A Triumphant Servant. He shall bear, Heb. nasa, ‘To lift up’.

B A meeting place for sinners. Heb. paga.

In both passages paga is causative, ‘He caused to meet’. In the one case it was the meeting, in wrath, of borne

sin; in the other the meeting, in grace, of ransomed sinners.

How different is Isaiah’s usage of the word in chapter 47, where God visits the iniquity of Babylon on the great

city and system.

‘Come down, and sit in the dust ... thy shame shall be seen: I will take vengeance, and I will not meet thee as a

man’ (Isa. 47:1-3).

The translation hardly expresses the true intention of the prophet here. He does not so much say that God will not

meet guilty Babylon as a man, for, then, Babylon might hope for some excusing of its evil. Rotherham renders the

passage:

‘An avenging I will take, and will accept no son of earth’.

George Adam Smith renders the passage:

‘Vengeance I take, and strike treaty with none’.

The Revised Version reads,

‘I will accept no one’.

Truly, terrible indeed would be the lot of all men if God dealt with them according to their deserts. Merciful

intercession for us, meant the bearing of sin by Him.

‘He was taken from prison and from judgment: and who shall declare His generation?’(Isa. 53:8).

The Companion Bible says: ‘As to the men of His age (i.e., His contemporaries), who ponders, or considers as to

this seed, seeing He is to be cut off?’

Lightfoot refers to the rule of the Sanhedrin which says:

‘In judgments about the life of any man, they begin first to transact about acquitting the party who is tried: and

they begin not with those things which make for his condemnation’ (Sanhedr. cap. 4).

It is evident from the record of the trial of Christ, that this merciful rule was abandoned. There was some

pretence of calling forward any who would ‘testify on His behalf’ but, with the disciples fled, and the ban of

SATISFIED 50

excommunication awaiting any Israelite who confessed Him, none were forthcoming. From all considerations we

are inclined more to the rendering propounded by Jenour than by others, which is as follows:

‘From help and from justice He was taken away’.

The LXX is quoted in Acts 8:33 where it reads, ‘In His humiliation His judgment was taken away’. He was denied

a regular trial, and those helps which were normally granted to accused persons were withheld.

‘Who testifieth to His way of life?’- The Mishna (a collection of Rabbinical traditions) states that before anyone was

punished for a capital crime, proclamation before the prisoner was made in these words: ‘Whoever knows anything

concerning his innocence, let him come and declare it’. When our Saviour requested that His disciples should be

asked to bear witness as to His doctrine, the only answer was a blow from one of the officers which stood by (John

18:21,22).

‘And He made His grave with the wicked, and with the rich in His death’ (Isa. 53:9).

Calvin understands the word ‘rich’ to be a synonym for ‘wicked’. Govet, following Dr. Kennicott’s translation,

reads:

‘He was taken up with wicked men in His death and with the rich man was His sepulchre’.

which seems to be a prophetic anticipation of the ‘thieves’ (plural) and of Joseph of Arimathaea, the rich man

(singular). The Companion Bible supplies a comment on the word translated ‘made’ in Isaiah 53:9 showing that it

could mean ‘appointed’, but nathan, the Hebrew word in question, is found in the record of Absalom’s death, where

we read ‘he was taken up between the heaven and the earth’ (2 Sam. 18:9), and, for the Hebrew student, we note that

De Rossi found the word in one of his Spanish MSS pointed to read passively. On more than one occasion the

Saviour spoke of the manner of His death as that of being ‘lifted up’ (John 3:14; 8:28; 12:32,34). It is therefore in

full harmony with the truth thus to understand Isaiah 53:9.

The word ‘wicked’ is plural, (there were two thieves crucified with Christ), but the word ‘rich’ is singular. The

New Testament particularly records the fact that Joseph of Arimathaea, who begged of Pilate the body of Jesus, was

a ‘rich man’. Thus the unjust character of His trial, and the character and circumstances of those most intimately

associated with His death are clearly foretold in this wondrous prophecy.

‘Because He had done no violence’ (Isa. 53:9) - The first word in this clause has been rendered by some translators

‘although’, making the sense ‘although He had done no violence yet it pleased the Lord to bruise Him’, which does

most certainly accord with the doctrine of the atonement. The Companion Bible, however, makes no comment, and

the absence of comment here is eloquent, for Dr. Bullinger was a Hebrew scholar and keen enough to have seen the

value of such a translation. The comment of Birks seems the soundest: he says that these words ‘are neither the

cause nor the impediment "though" or "because". They seem to note simply the fact of the strange contrast between

His spotless innocence, and His dishonourable death’, consequently he translates the passage,

‘When He had done no violence’.

As we read this foreshadowing of the great Sacrifice for sin, may we ever remind ourselves that He was

wounded for our transgressions, and so echo the grateful words of the apostle, ‘The Son of God Who loved me, and

gave Himself for me’.

‘THE PLEASURE OF THE LORD SHALL PROSPER IN HIS HAND’ (Isa. 53:10)

We now draw to the conclusion of this mighty chapter of redeeming love. The great solitary Figure, so clearly

seen centuries before His advent, is given one title, ‘My Servant’ (Isa. 52:13), ‘My righteous Servant’ (Isa. 53:11).

His humiliation and His exaltation are the two subjects that divide this prophetic passage between them. His

humiliation has now been surveyed. We have seen Him ‘a root out of a dry ground’ treated by Israel as a leper, yet

bearing our griefs and carrying our sorrows; wounded for our transgressions and bringing healing by His very

stripes.

We now approach the glorious conclusion. While the actual word ‘resurrection’ is not employed by the prophet

here, the fact of resurrection is most surely to be found in Isaiah 53. The Servant of the Lord is not only bruised and

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wounded, He is actually ‘cut off out of the land of the living’ (Isa. 53:8), and finds His grave with the wicked (Isa.

53:9). He is seen as both dead and buried. Yet verse 10 says, ‘when Thou shalt make His soul an offering for sin,

He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in His hand’. Here

then is abundant life, life from the dead, resurrection life and glory.

Just as Isaiah 53 prophetically depicts the suffering, death and burial of the Saviour, following that burial with

words that can mean nothing else than newness of life, so another prophetic foreview of the cross (Psa. 22), does not

end before introducing the word of life, saying of Him Who for our sakes had been ‘forsaken’ (Psa. 22:1):

‘A seed shall serve Him; it shall be accounted to the Lord for a generation’ (Psa. 22:30).

This passage would be better rendered, with Perowne:

‘A seed shall serve Him; it shall be told to the generation (to come) concerning the Lord’, and should be read as

being similar in thought to Psalm 71:18; ‘Forsake me not; until I have shewed Thy strength unto this generation’.

Not only shall the Messiah have a seed but He, Himself, shall prolong His days. Under the law, the prolonging

of one’s days was a special promise to those who kept the commandment of the Lord, as the apostle Paul notes

where he alludes to it as the ‘first commandment with promise’ (Eph. 6:2; Exod. 20:12). According to Deuteronomy

4:26, the alternative to the prolongation of one’s days is ‘to utterly perish’, ‘to be utterly destroyed’. Throughout the

book of Deuteronomy the association of prolonged days with obedience is maintained (there are nine separate

references). One passage particularly noteworthy, is 25:15, where the keeping of a perfect and just weight and

measure is connected with this promise of life. We have learned, both by bitter experience and by the teaching of

the Scriptures, however, that ‘if there had been a law given which could have given life, verily righteousness should

have been by the law’ (Gal. 3:21). But the law was rendered ‘weak through the flesh’ (Rom. 8:3) and so Isaiah 53

was the blessed answer of grace. The fact should not be lost sight of, that by choosing the expression, ‘He shall

prolong His days’, Isaiah intentionally introduces the thought that here, at last is the righteous Servant of the Lord;

One Who has magnified the law; One in Whose heart and life that law was honoured and obeyed, even though the

Righteousness provided by the Gospel be infinitely beyond anything that ‘the law’ could attain.

‘It pleased the LORD to bruise Him’ - yet He was the righteous One, an enigma solved only by the teaching of the

New Testament concerning Him Who, though He knew no sin, was made sin for us, that we might be made the

righteousness of God in Him. Not only shall He see His seed, not only shall He prolong His days, but something

even more wonderful than length of life is His for ‘the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand’. Let us allow

no tampering with the word ‘pleasure’. There are other Hebrew words that are rightly rendered ‘will’, ‘purpose’ and

‘counsel’, but the prophet has been inspired to use a word that in the Authorized Version of Isaiah alone is nine

times rendered ‘delight’, four times ‘please’, and seven times ‘pleasure’. At the opening of the second part of Isaiah,

Cyrus foreshadows the coming of Christ:

‘That saith of Cyrus, He is My shepherd, and shall perform all My pleasure’ (Isa. 44:28).

The restoration of Israel, includes the New Jerusalem, whose ‘gates’ shall be of carbuncles, and whose ‘borders’

‘pleasant stones’, and in Isaiah 62:4 the word attains its highest fulfilment in this prophecy when the marriage of the

redeemed people is celebrated under the name Hephzi-bah, ‘My delight is in her’, for this word chephets, is the very

word ‘pleasure’ we are considering. This ‘pleasure’, eventuating in blessing such as the world has not yet

experienced, is the direct outcome of the Saviour’s sufferings. These blessings flow from the grace of atonement,

for it is the self-same ‘pleasure’ of the Lord that will fall in judgment upon Babylon, and would, and must, fall upon

all whose sins are unremoved.

Consequently we are prepared for the lesson of Isaiah 53, and observe that this same word, ‘pleasure’, of verse

10, has previously been used of the Saviour’s sufferings in the same verse, where we read:

‘Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise Him ... the pleasure of the LORD shall prosper in His hand’.

It shall prosper. Gesenius gives as the primary meaning of the word translated ‘to prosper’, ‘to go over, or

through (as of a river)’, and so we find the word used in a literal sense in such a passage as 2 Samuel 19:17, ‘they

went over Jordan’, and in Joshua 1:8, we read, ‘Thou shalt make thy way prosperous’. The conquering King of

Psalm 45

SATISFIED 52

‘rides prosperously’. When Nehemiah contemplated the restoration of Jerusalem he prayed, ‘prosper Thy servant’

(Neh. 1:11) and when opposition reared its head he responded by saying, ‘The God of heaven, He will prosper us’

(Neh. 2:20). The word ‘prosper’ is found in association with the word ‘please’ already considered in Isaiah 55:11,

where, speaking of His word, the Lord declares, ‘It shall accomplish that which I please, and it shall prosper in the

thing whereto I sent it’ - words that have a specific bearing upon the restoration of the people of Israel. This

prophecy will not be fulfilled until Israel shall say:

‘Save now (Hosannah), I beseech Thee, O LORD ... send now prosperity. Blessed be He that cometh in the name

of the LORD’ (Psa. 118:25,26) .

With all this positive witness concerning the prosperity of Israel, when once they look upon Him they have

pierced, comes the negative assurance.

‘No weapon that is formed against thee shall prosper’ (Isa. 54:17).

Not only shall the crucified and bruised Christ have risen to die no more: not only shall the purposes of the Lord’s

grace be performed, but:

‘He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied’ (Isa. 53:11).

The word here translated ‘travail’ means, ‘labour with toil and weariness’. It is found more frequently in

Ecclesiastes than in any other Old Testament book, where the labour that is undertaken by man under the sun

appeared to Solomon to end in ‘vanity and vexation of spirit’. Here is the blessed contrast: He shall see the glorious

fruits of His weary labour and toil, ‘and shall be satisfied’. Here again our thoughts are turned to Ecclesiastes,

where we learn,

‘The eye is not satisfied with seeing, nor the ear filled with hearing’ (1:8).

‘Neither is his eye satisfied with riches’ (4:8).

It is the Psalmist who sees that true satisfaction awaits the day of resurrection, when he cries,

‘I shall be satisfied, when I awake, with Thy likeness’ (17:15).

Here, moreover, we find that most precious word - so intimately bound up with the ministry of Paul as to be for

ever associated with his gospel to the Romans and Galatians - the word ‘justify’ and, in perfect accord with the

doctrine of those mighty epistles, this justification is based upon atonement;

‘By His knowledge shall My righteous Servant justify many; for He shall bear their iniquities’ (Isa. 53:11).

‘By His knowledge’.- Birks comments on this phrase: ‘"His knowledge" is commonly taken in a passive sense, for

knowledge of which He is the object ... a pronoun with "knowledge" always denotes the subject, not the object, of

the knowledge’. There is considerable disagreement among expositors as to whether ‘by His knowledge’ means (1)

the believer’s knowledge of Him or (2) His own knowledge. And where it is understood as His own knowledge

opinions are divided as to (a), whether it is His knowledge of the Father’s will, or of grief (Isa. 53:3), or (b) whether

the words should not read with the preceding sentence, thus, ‘and by His knowledge be satisfied’. In his

commentary George Adam Smith says that he had not found this reading in any other writing until he found it in

Professor Brigg’s translation. The reader of The Companion Bible will see that it has been adopted in the notes on

this chapter. There is much to be said for the reading, more particularly because as G. A. Smith points out, ‘it is

supported by the frequent parallel in which we find seeing and knowing in Hebrew’. Let it be observed that God’s

righteous Servant does not justify the many simply because He Himself was righteous. He justifies the many

because He Himself ‘bear their iniquities’, or as Paul puts it, ‘justified by His blood’ (Rom. 5:9); ‘Who was

delivered for (because of) our offences, and was raised again for (because of) our justification’ (Rom. 4:25).

Now comes the triumph; the crown following the cross; the sufferings of Christ and the glories that should

follow. Those whom He justifies He will also glorify.

‘Therefore will I divide Him a portion with the great, and He shall divide the spoil with the strong’ (Isa. 53:12).

53

In the original of Isaiah 53:12 there is no word for ‘portion’, but some such word must be supplied. Two very

distinct lines of teaching arise from the two dividings of this verse.

(1) ‘I will divide Him a portion with the great’; that is the inheritance apportioned to Him shall be commensurate

with the victory He has achieved, and,

(2) ‘He shall divide the spoil with the strong’; that is, some of the redeemed will not only be saved, not only

receive pardon and life, but will attain to a crown and a prize, as a reward. In early volumes of The Berean

Expositor we have discussed the great difference that must be observed between ‘the hope’ and ‘the prize’; between

‘the inheritance’ of Colossians 1:12, which is all of grace, and the ‘reward’ of the inheritance of Colossians 3:24;

between the ‘presentation’ of Colossians 1:22, which stands only and entirely upon the virtue of His atonement, and

the ‘presenting perfect’ of Colossians 1:28, which is associated with the apostle’s ‘warning’.

We cannot go over the ground again here, but it is saddening, beyond measure, to see men of God, men who

hold the truth of the mystery, men who are teaching others, failing in this vital matter, ‘rightly to divide the Word of

Truth’. As workmen, such will be ‘ashamed’ in that day, and through failure to ‘divide’ the truth, will fail to

‘divide’ the spoil, for that honour is reserved for those who resemble David’s first three mighty men or his first

thirty. This does not indicate unfair discrimination - this reward is not merely for the obvious overcomer; David’s

law will obtain at the end:

‘As his part is that goeth down to the battle, so shall his part be that tarrieth by the stuff: they shall part (divide)

alike’ (1 Sam. 30:24).

In whatever rank the believer may find himself in that day, whether ‘saved so as by fire’ or obtaining salvation

‘with age-abiding glory’, all will share the triumph of the Saviour’s cross; all can say from a full heart ‘Thanks be to

God that giveth us the victory, through our Lord Jesus Christ’.

While we cannot hope to fathom the depths or scale the heights on any passage of Holy Writ, we believe that the

preceding examination of Isaiah 53 will be a useful guide and a profitable study, not only of that passage as a whole,

but as a climax and crown to the quest for satisfaction, which started with so much disappointment and frustration

under the guidance of Ecclesiastes, that was lifted above the poor substitute of a ‘proxy immortality’ so wonderfully

set forth by the Psalmist, and brought to its victorious and breathtaking avowal of Isaiah 53.

‘WHEREFORE IF YE BE DEAD with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, are

ye subject to ordinances, (Touch not; taste not; handle not; which all are to perish with the using;) after the

commandments and doctrines of men? Which things have indeed a shew of wisdom in will worship, and

humility, and neglecting of the body; not in any honour to the satisfying of the flesh.

IF YE THEN BE RISEN with Christ, seek ... set ... When Christ, Who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also

appear with Him in glory’ (Col. 2:20 to 3:4).

SATISFIED.

54

Isaiah 52:13 to 53:12

A 52:13 to 53:11-. B 52:14 to 53:3. c Visage (Mareh)

My Servant Nations d Form (Toar).

Extolled (Nasa). and Kings. e Heard (Shamea)

Many Startled. e Report (Shemuah).

d Form (Toar).

c Beauty (Mareh).

C 53:4-11-. D e Grief (Choli, noun).

Subtitutionary f Stricken (Naga, verb).

Sufferings. g Bruised (Daka).

h Like sheep The

i Astray Sinner.

j Made to meet (paga).

k Iniquity

D h As sheep The

i Dumb Saviour

f Stricken (Nega, noun)

g Bruised (Daka).

e Grief (chalah, verb).

A 53:11.12. B 53:12. c Divide portion.

My Servant. Great and d With the great.

He Bare (Nasa). Strong. c Divide spoil.

Many justified. d With the strong.

C 53:12 e He poured out His soul

Substitutionary f Unto death.

Sufferings. e He was numbered.

f With transgressors.

j He made a meeting

place (paga).

k Transgressors.